Career
Along with Ashley, Olsen was cast at the age of nine months to share the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House. The Olsen twins portrayed Michelle throughout the series' 1987–1995 run. In the early 1990s, Olsen and her twin sister established a company, Dualstar, which produced a long string of TV movies and direct-to-video releases featuring the girls. The Olsens continued to release direct-to-video films up to the early 2000s, along with starring in the 1995 feature film It Takes Two. After Full House, the sisters starred in two other sitcoms (Two of a Kind and So Little Time) and an animated series (Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!), each of which lasted only one season while So Little Time ran for two seasons. These ventures, combined with an array of licensing deals for their names and likenesses, made Olsen wealthy at a young age. In 2004, Olsen's wealth was estimated at $137 million.
Olsen and her sister became co-presidents of Dualstar upon their eighteenth birthday. Olsen's first solo acting appearance was in the movie Factory Girl, released in December 2006. Olsen's one short scene was ultimately cut from theatrical release, but was included on the film's DVD. In 2007, Olsen and her twin sister said that if they became involved in movies together again it would be as producers. Olsen had a recurring role on Weeds as Tara Lindman. She appears in the 2008 film The Wackness as Union. At the Sundance Film Festival, co-star and Academy Award–winner Sir Ben Kingsley praised her.
Olsen made a one-episode appearance in 2008 on the ABC comedy Samantha Who?, playing a self-destructive girl whom Samantha tries to help while doing community service. Olsen appeared in the movie Beastly, which was based on the book of the same name by Alex Flinn. Olsen signed on to play Stacey in the movie Story of a Girl, but the movie appears to have been put on hold.
In March 2012, Olsen and her twin sister expressed an interest in quitting acting for good in order to focus on their fashion career. Olsen has expressed a desire to open up a fashion shop. Olsen has said that she considers fashion, rather than acting, as her future.
Read more about this topic: Mary-Kate Olsen
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)