Playing Audrey Williams in the upcoming Hank Williams‘ biopic, I Saw the Light, proved challenging for Elizabeth Olsen. The actress admits that it was tough to know how to best portray the complexity of the country icon’s first wife, to whom he was married for seven years.
“I didn’t know much about Hank and Audrey. I knew who Hank Williams was, [but] I didn’t know who Audrey was until I read the script,” Olsen tells The Boot. “So before doing any research, you just see the relationship on the page, which was a woman who, on the surface, it seems like she’s difficult. She’s demanding, and she has an ego, and it blows up his ego, and she’s stubborn and manipulative.”
However, it only took one read through the script, written by director Marc Abraham, to convince Olsen to take on the role. And when she signed on, Olsen explains, her goal became to “defend” Audrey Williams.
“I read it and felt really sorry for her, and I felt like she had a very difficult situation …,” Olsen says. “Even though there aren’t certain things that I agree with that she fought for, that she fought about, I at least tried to find out why, or what that motivation is.
“I think if you can see two sides of the equation, it makes for a much more interesting dynamic between relationships, or in a film or in drama,” Olsen continues. “I just tried to defend her as much as possible so people could care for her, because in history, people kind of give her a hard time.”
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