ABSTRACT
Child stars almost invariably face a difficult transition to adult roles and adult life. A few, like Jodie Foster or Dakota Fanning, move smoothly from child roles to playing adolescents, then adults, without major professional or personal missteps. Navigating the passage to adulthood is especially fraught for female stars, given that female sexuality remains the focus of powerful anxieties, an impossible tangle of spoken and unspoken rules and conflicting imperatives and prohibitions. By the time they approached their 18th birthday in 2004, the twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were the principals of a billion-dollar empire of straight-to-video films, television shows and branded merchandise. The Olsens had begun performing, or perhaps 'appearing' is a more appropriate term for infants, playing the character Michelle Tanner in the TV series Full House in 1987, when they were one-year-olds. When in Rome shows the Olsens carefully walking the fine line between self-branding and knowing one's place.
