Fans of Marvel aren’t stupid, and they know that the studio’s most successful films are bright, candy-coloured spectacles. These massive movies are entrusted with updating the cheesy comic book characters of the ’60s and ’70s to appeal to a new generation of moviegoers. Famous actors and actresses are just as conscious of, if not more so than, the absurdity of their roles in bringing these superhumans to life on screen.
Actress Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Wanda Maximoff in the MCU, spoke to Variety about her experience playing a strong reality-altering sorceress who trades in Chaos magic. Olsen made her Marvel Cinematic Universe début in a post-credits sequence for the 2014 sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, directed by the Russo Brothers. Members of Hydra unveiled the Maximoff twins to the audience as the group’s experimental and amazing new weapons to use against the Avengers.
Since then, Olsen has enchanted audiences with her portrayals of Wanda and the Scarlet Witch thanks to her ability to dig deep into a character’s reservoir of feeling despite the character’s inconceivable suffering. Wanda has seen a great deal of tragedy in her life, including the deaths of her parents and brother as well as the murder of her own spouse. Even yet, Olsen can’t help but “get giggly” when she sees Josh Brolin in the character’s helmet, despite the fact that Thanos is in the middle of a mass holocaust. When Earth falls under the control of a ruthless cosmic ruler in Avengers: Infinity War, the heroes of that franchise are humanity’s last line of defence against the annihilation of half the species. The cost of that defence is prohibitive for Wanda.
The only way to defeat Thanos is for her and Vision’s joint Mind Stone to be destroyed, which is currently located in Vision’s skull (Paul Bettany). Despite the gravity of the decision her character must make, Olsen says, “it’s extremely humiliating filming those types of scenes.” She also noted how much she enjoyed working with Paul Bettany in these parts by saying, We also improvised, which was challenging given the circumstances. The fact that Paul [Bettany] and I had one other’s backs at that moment made it feel even better. It was filmed towards the very end of the production. If we had to improvise that scene, I felt completely at ease working with him as an actor. The Russians were assisting us in our search for it. When it was finally finished, I felt a tremendous sense of relief.
Even while Olsen enjoyed working with Bettany and found him to be a welcome distraction on set, she did find Vision’s appearance off camera to be a touch “silly,” as she explains.
“Just look at him; he’s the colour purple. The purple is then covered with glitter. Therefore, you will acquire a glittery sheen once he comes into physical contact with you. You’re sweating, too, since it’s Atlanta. Therefore, he would be completely losing it. And then he had those devices in his ears that required him to open them like this and let the water slowly trickle out. This is absolutely ridiculous. You’ll find a lot of inane material. Wish they’d just release a cut of the movie without any CGI so people could see how stupid it is on their own.”
The actress says the “amazing the labour is that goes into crafting them” is best demonstrated by the “silly moments.” Olsen acknowledges the efforts of the special effects, digital, and makeup departments, but also points to the camaraderie of the cast as a whole as a key factor in the cinematic quality of Marvel films. To their mutual benefit, Olsen claims she “felt incredibly comfortable with [Bettany] as an actress,” which contributed to their unmistakable connection in the Marvel flicks and their Disney+ miniseries WandaVision. The series delves into the horrifying ways Wanda coped with the loss of Vision, which in turn triggered the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. WandaVision parodies the classic Vision and Scarlet Witch comic book look in the Halloween episode.
Olsen claims that the “sad and emotional” stories at the heart of Marvel films need “you to play your ass off for them to succeed,” despite the films’ reputation for glitz and frivolity. Even though Wanda suffered a tragic end in the second Doctor Strange film, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently hinted that Elizabeth Olsen’s time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe might not be over just yet. There is a lot more to explore with the Scarlet Witch, as Feige revealed fans haven’t even seen some of the most crucial themes from the comics.