If you're of a certain age, you basically grew up with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the twins who took Hollywood by storm from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s. Having started with a popular sitcom, the twins were known for their films, many of which took them around the world, and certainly seemed to be on the verge of forming a huge entertainment empire. After that, the two basically disappeared from the entertainment industry and shifted their focus to something else entirely: high fashion.

So why are the two no longer acting and what are they up to today? More specifically, why Did they leave Hollywood behind for a whole new journey ... and did any of their family members take their place on the big and small screens? (The answer to that last one is, in fact, yes.) Here's everything we know about the world-famous Olsen twins, why they stopped acting, and what they've been up to since.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's Hollywood journey knows that starting together on the beloved ABC sitcom "Full House" in 1987, when they were both just six monthsalthough they were three months older by the time the series actually began filming. Because of child labor laws, twins usually play babies and toddlers in movies and TV shows, and this is no exception; the Olsen twins both played Michelle Tanner, the youngest member of the show's blended family and the daughter of Danny Tanner (Bob Saget), a widower with two older daughters (Jodie Sweetin's Stephanie and Candace Cameron's DJ).

Along with a crossover episode (where Full House joined forces with Hangin' with Mr. Starring from there, when Fuller House became a reality on Netflix in 2016, the twins chose not to return, and in a sweet nod to their post-Hollywood career, the show was recast so that Michelle's absence was due to her work as a fashion designer in New York "Full House" twins John Stamos once admitted he was "angry" at first (via People magazine) that they refused, he eventually realized that the Olsen twins simply did not want to return to acting.

After Full House ended its run in 1995, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen took control of their Hollywood futures—they had already founded their company Dualstar, which launched in 1993—and took on their first independent film that same year. , titled "It Takes Two." The whole thing is sort of a twist on The Parent Trap, with Ashley's Alice and Mary-Kate's Amanda attending summer camp, realizing they look identical, and changing their lives to fool their parental figures (Steve Guttenberg and Kirsty Alley). to join together. . They followed that up with a one-season series, Two of a Kind, which aired on ABC in 1998. year.

Frankly, Mary-Kate and Ashley's iron grip on Hollywood has been almost exclusively through direct-to-video films starring the twins, such as 1999's Passport to Paris, 2000's Our Lips Are Sealed, Victorious London and "Holiday in the Sun" - both released in 2001 - and "Getting There" and "When in Rome", which came out in 2002 year. Then, in 2004, the two made their last film together, New York Minute, which actually do out in theaters (marking the duo only theatrical release in addition to "It Takes Two").

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen turned 18 in 2004 and became co-presidents of Dualstar for their birthday, but by then, their time as Hollywood starlets was largely over. Ashley never acted professionally again after New York Minute and although Mary-Kate appeared in some films and TV series, the results - 2006's Factory Girl, 2008's The Wackness and 2011's Beastly year - have seriously decreased. is coming back. Ultimately, "The Beast" also marked Mary-Kate's last role. (To be fair to Mary-Kate, her small-screen turns in "Piraeus" and "Samantha Who?" were actually pretty fun.)

While the Olsen twins released a tone of products through Dualstar aimed at a teenage audience, like fragrances and decor, their screen time was basically over ... especially when they launched their fashion line The Row in 2012. So why did they leave acting? "I read scripts, and in the end I just said to the people representing me, 'I have to do things 100 percent.' "I don't feel like I can give you 100 percent of my time," Ashley said. Allure Magazine reporter Judy Bacharach in 2013 during a game alongside her twin before continuing, "There's a lot of compromise in the entertainment industry." Mary-Kate, for her part, agreed, telling the magazine of her time as an actor: "I'm not great at not being able to control the end product."

In 2015, Ashley Olsen revealed that the inspiration for The Row - which is named after Savile Row, a street in London's posh Mayfair district known for its bespoke tailors - came from her search for the perfect T-shirt, and ultimately, the first collection the line was made up of just seven items (including that t-shirt). Known for its 'quiet luxury', The Row also comes with a thick price list (as of this writing, dress prices are The Row's official website range from $2,000 to $7,000, while that "perfect" cotton T-shirt is roughly $500). So did the sisters have trouble making the leap from teenage products to high fashion? Ashley told Women's Wear Daily in 2015 that, yes, it was an obstacle, but they removed it together:

"I think there is a very obvious answer to that question. That never stopped us from working hard. It never got in the way of our ultimate goal, which was to make clothes for women."

The Row has won three Council of Fashion Designers of America awards — Womenswear Designer of the Year in both 2012 and 2015 and Accessories Designer of the Year in 2019 — and in 2024, the heiress to L'Oreal and the family behind Chanel, according to Bloombergbought a stake in The Row. As a result, the company is now valued at $1 billion as I write this; clearly, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen do just good like high-end fashion designers. The duo's other lines—Elizabeth and James (named after their siblings), Stylemint tees, and the JC Penny Olsenboye collaboration—all faded, but The Row lives on.

If you were a big fan of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen during their time in Hollywood, don't worry! There is still an Olsen in the entertainment industry, and she is crushing it! Elizabeth Olsen, the youngest member of the famous family - her older brother James, who she calls Trent, is between her and the twins in age - appeared in several of her sisters' projects as a young child, but was eventually chosen to study acting at the University of New York, quietly graduated in 2013. sister Mary-Kate's weight.)

In 2011, Olsen stars in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Sean Durkin's tale of a young woman who escaped from a cult seriously put her on the map in the entertainment industry—and she wisely followed it up with solid independent projects like The Liberal Arts, Kill Your Darlings, and Very Good Girls. . However, there's no doubt that the youngest Olsen's biggest mark in pop culture is her role as Wanda Maximoff, also known as Scarlet Witch, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which she may or may not reprise in the future ... but through projects like Avengers: Age of Ultron and WandaVision, she's proven she can easily play in Marvel's vast sandbox at the drop of a hat. In 2024 and Olsen showed off his considerable dramatic chops once again in His Three Daughters. a quiet but intense family story that also stars Carey Coon and Natasha Lyonne.

Mary-Kate and Ashley may no longer be acting, but Elizabeth carries on their legacy.