Former East London amateur dramatic performer turned Hollywood horror actor Maria Olsen scored her ultimate accolade when her creepy performance in a spoof horror movie commercial was aired during the 90th Academy Awards last Sunday evening.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPZYp4Q7rDwOlsen (née De Boer), 51, an accountant who moved to Los Angeles in 2005 with 20 pet cats to marry her American pen pal, has acted in scores of macabre and gory movies and has been coated in “blood” more times than she can remember.
She has appeared in Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Paranormal Activity 3, American Horror Story and been a regular in the horror series Trophy Heads and Ravenwolf Towers, but knowing the eyes of Hollywood’s A-listers were on her at the Oscars took the cake.
Clad in a mustard uniform and apron, Olsen is a sinister housekeeper in a spoof of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 1980 horror movie The Shining.
Set in a replica of the movie’s spine-chilling Overlook Hotel, the faux hotel ad shows Olsen dropping a bucket of water as a bathroom curtain is eerily pulled back and on her hands and knees impassively swabbing clean a pool of blood seeping from under the elevator door.
In her third scene she goes about her chores loading two identical dresses worn by the movie’s cultish twins into a laundry trolley in a wallpapered hotel corridor.
The commercial was produced to advertise the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and was aired during the ceremony.
“I cannot tell you how exciting it was to be working on exact replicas of the iconic sets from The Shining,” said Olsen.
“Given my lifelong love of horror, I was especially excited and I couldn’t believe it when I was told that the spot was actually going to air on the drop-down screen in the Dolby Theatre during the actual Academy Awards ceremony.”
On the day of the ceremony Olsen, who does not own a TV, watched online. “It was absolutely gorgeous. I was awestruck that all my heroes and heroines in the industry who attended the ceremony were seeing my work.”
Olsen is also a producer and owns Monsterworks66 and has worked with Hollywood heavyweights Pierce Brosnan, Chris Columbus and Ron Howard.
She has been battered and bruised in many stunt sequences and been made up to the point where she was no longer recognisable.
“My latest project includes I Spit on Your Grave Déjà Vu, which is currently in post production.”
She said her turn at the Oscars meant that all her “family, friends, followers and fans” could see her in all her gory glory.
“My Facebook post was instantaneous and I haven’t stopped getting comments on it since. I’ve also seen that the commercial has gone viral on some sites and horror websites are also picking up on the story.
“For a horror actress this has been a dream come true.” — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
WATCH: Oscar fame for former EL actress
Olsen (née De Boer), 51, an accountant who moved to Los Angeles in 2005 with 20 pet cats to marry her American pen pal, has acted in scores of macabre and gory movies and has been coated in “blood” more times than she can remember.
She has appeared in Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Paranormal Activity 3, American Horror Story and been a regular in the horror series Trophy Heads and Ravenwolf Towers, but knowing the eyes of Hollywood’s A-listers were on her at the Oscars took the cake.
Clad in a mustard uniform and apron, Olsen is a sinister housekeeper in a spoof of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 1980 horror movie The Shining.
Set in a replica of the movie’s spine-chilling Overlook Hotel, the faux hotel ad shows Olsen dropping a bucket of water as a bathroom curtain is eerily pulled back and on her hands and knees impassively swabbing clean a pool of blood seeping from under the elevator door.
In her third scene she goes about her chores loading two identical dresses worn by the movie’s cultish twins into a laundry trolley in a wallpapered hotel corridor.
The commercial was produced to advertise the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and was aired during the ceremony.
“I cannot tell you how exciting it was to be working on exact replicas of the iconic sets from The Shining,” said Olsen.
“Given my lifelong love of horror, I was especially excited and I couldn’t believe it when I was told that the spot was actually going to air on the drop-down screen in the Dolby Theatre during the actual Academy Awards ceremony.”
On the day of the ceremony Olsen, who does not own a TV, watched online. “It was absolutely gorgeous. I was awestruck that all my heroes and heroines in the industry who attended the ceremony were seeing my work.”
Olsen is also a producer and owns Monsterworks66 and has worked with Hollywood heavyweights Pierce Brosnan, Chris Columbus and Ron Howard.
She has been battered and bruised in many stunt sequences and been made up to the point where she was no longer recognisable.
“My latest project includes I Spit on Your Grave Déjà Vu, which is currently in post production.”
She said her turn at the Oscars meant that all her “family, friends, followers and fans” could see her in all her gory glory.
“My Facebook post was instantaneous and I haven’t stopped getting comments on it since. I’ve also seen that the commercial has gone viral on some sites and horror websites are also picking up on the story.
“For a horror actress this has been a dream come true.” — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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