The March issue of Interview magazine (previewed at a party Tuesday night at Elaine’s) features a Q&A with Mary-Kate Olsen by Interview‘s editor in chief Christopher Bollen. When Mr. Bollen reached Ms. Olsen by phone in her apartment in New York on Inauguration Day, she had just finished making a celebratory breakfast after watching President Barack Obama‘s speech.
"The streets are so quiet here. We went to pick up some coffee this morning and it was dead," she tells Mr. Bollen. "The coffee shop that’s by my sister’s place is usually super-crowded and the guy who works there said that because of the inauguration, nobody’s there. Everyone’s at home."
The article reads differently from other interviews we’ve read with Ms. Olsen. Usually, her quotes seem to be pulled out of press releases or supplied by her publicist. Here, Ms. Olsen actually seems like a human being. Take her perspective on Full House, the show that launched Mary-Kate and her sister Ashley to stardom. It always seemed as though Mary-Kate and her sister never really enjoyed talking about their role on the show; it’s as if they wanted us to forget about all those silly made-for-TV movies and cute mannerisms they coined in the ’90s. But in fact, Ms. Olsen has a sense of humor about it.
"Full House is on all the time. Really. I see that it’s on," she said. "But last year, Ashley spent the night at my place and I woke up to the theme song at seven in the morning. I was like, ‘What are you doing?’" (Ms. Olsen proceeded to sing the first few words of the theme song for Mr. Bollen.)
After talking fashion and movies, Mr. Bollen moved on to the media’s obsession with the actress and her boyfriend, artist Nate Lowman, and the paparazzi.
"I’m definitely bicoastal, but I have to say, it’s easier to live in New York than in L.A. I feel like people respect other people’s space a bit more here," she told the magazine. "Everyone has the right to that freedom, right? Everyone has that right. It’s freezing in New York right now. In L.A., it’s sunny. But I would choose freezing over being followed."
This reminded us of the time Ms. Olsen was out with Mr. Lowman at Brooke Geahan‘s Halloween party in October. The actress seemed friendly as she mingled with the guests rather than hiding out in some back VIP area—a difference from the way she comes in paparazzi photos, running and shielding herself from the cameras with the help of mammoth bodyguards. (There seemed to be no bodyguards in sight this time around.)
The whole thing was so disarming that we felt guilty taking advantage and decided not to bother her. (What if we were to scare her off back to the days of burly bodyguards and a huge black SUV parked outside of wherever she was?) We thought Ms. Olsen should know that if she wanted to go out without her agents, publicists, and bodyguards, that we weren’t always going to stare or try to talk to her. And it appears that she’s noticed!
