AGATHA ALL ALONG interviews Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza, Joe Locke, cast & crew - August 10, 2024 4K

Flabbergasted. I really was in shock. I didn't imagine this a million years. So it took a long time for it to sink in and then after talking with Jack and realizing kind of what she wanted to explore with Agatha this time around and go a little bit deeper, I was so excited as an actor, as an Agatha lover. I really couldn't wait. And advocate. I really couldn't wait to do that. It sounded like a dream. It's been so much fun to join the MCU. I've always loved Marvel and Marvel films and projects. So to be involved in one now, I don't know, it feels like a very surreal moment. And you know, Tina is such an amazing character. He's got so many layers to him. And I know he's just fun to play such a mysterious part. She's definitely a witch through and through. Like I say, everyone's a witch through and through in this show. But I see that as a positive. And that sometimes for a long time, she's relied on her cruelty and her defensiveness and her just like being above it all and her saying she doesn't need anybody. And because she just doesn't look at her past at all. She just can't do it. She just wants power and more of it and more of it and more of it. Nothing is ever going to satisfy her. And so I'd say for her to redeemable quality is that she definitely has urges of like surges of like, I want to say maternal or like, you know, there's other urges that come in that are unexpected for someone that you would think would be so locked off. Protection energy towards this group of women, towards this teen, like definitely has like, comes out when she least expects it. I love teen's complicatedness is his darkness. And layering that in with his like, fun energy and his upbeat, you know, teenageness. You know, striking the balance between them is really fun. I mean, a practical set is kind of what I grew up with, working on, you know, usually like in a tiny film, you just walk into literally someone's house, and then you're shooting in there. And so this world was, when I first entered through WandaVision, it was like, I couldn't believe that I was had got a chance to enter the MCU that way, because it was so felt the same, like there was not a lot of green screen, not a blue screen, and Matt Shackman, who directed it, wanted there to be not a lot of CGI, or so it felt very practical. The magic was all the magic we've used for so long ago. And so then this happened, and Jack really wanted to strip down even more. So I'd say my, the set that impressed me the most, and I think, really landed at home that we were able to do this, and there are so many artists that are involved, like, I just was in awe, was the Witch's Road set. Because of the size of the football field, and completely immersive. I mean, the practical sets, you know, as an actor, the thing you want most is to be able to see the thing you're supposed to be acting in. So it makes that much easier than, you know, acting to a tennis ball. And the sets themselves, they were just so incredible. The detail, and the layering, and the, I don't know, hints to what's to come in the series that were just hidden in these sets was amazing. And all the special effects, you know, the water in episode three was so amazing. Like, that there was a possibility to do in reality, just watching people at the top of their game, like, doing their like, the best. We were all really, I felt very, very lucky and blessed that it was this group of humans. Especially for this witch who likes to work alone. It was an incredibly gifted, everyone was so talented, legendary, and superstars. And it was, I felt, I think, a great amount of like, I just kept pinching myself because I felt so grateful to be surrounded by such talent. Because I knew it was going to just raise the quality of the thing as a whole. Oh, I feel like the relationships that we've made together, you know, we've formed, we've formed a coven, we've formed a bond between us all that is, I think, will last for a very, very, very long time. It's like a family. It's, I feel very, very lucky to be a part of it. A ladder. It's like, there is constant, like, the trials are always there. You have to get past one rung to get to the next. Possibility of falling, breaking something at every step. And when you get to the top, it's, you can't even like, if you can't even see, you lose track of what it is you're going for. And then once you get there, is it what you wanted? After all of that work? Like a labyrinth. Yes. For similar reasons. No, but I like labyrinth better because it's more twisty. Yeah. It's twisty and dangerous, but fun. I, well, without spoiling too much, I will say that my character is very powerful and mysterious and has almost like a shape-shifting quality where you kind of never know what version you're going to get. So I was really excited about the challenge of that and getting to kind of play a character that's playing by your own rules. I loved the practical elements of the show so much. And just the tangible quality of all the sets and all the kind of special effects. And I, yes, the set of The Witch's Road was kind of incredible. It made me feel like we were shooting The Wizard of Oz or something. Like I felt like, oh, this must have been what it felt like when they were shooting The Wizard of Oz, which I loved that. I felt the same way. Everybody in the cast had such a genuine, just generosity and kind of good souls. Like I feel it's rare to have such a big ensemble and have everyone kind of show up egoless and ready to play and laugh. And so it was, yeah, sometimes that happens and it's just, you have to appreciate it when it happens because it's really rare, like Patty said. I mean, for me to be in a group of such talented performers was really quite an honor. And I was really pumped about that. And I was also just, the scripts were so amazing and I was so excited to get to play in such a nuanced world. Yeah. And I was already a fan of WandaVision and also a fan of the MCU for years. And so to be able to join the MCU in this show was a literal dream come true. Well, I knew I'd be stepping into a new world, so I didn't know what it was going to be. And I knew that witches were involved. So I just was excited about working with new people and being in a whole different fantasy land. And I knew it would be fun. I think everyone's motivation probably was wanting to get something at the end of the road. But for Jen, I think she was really feeling a lack of power and agency over her life. And Agatha kind of illuminated that and poked at the fact that Jen has kind of given up on herself and her power. And so I think her goal was really to step out of her comfort zone and actually give this adventure a try. And I would say that Alice's objective of going down the road is to seek the truth. I think she's been told something about the road that she never really believed. And now that she's being presented with the option to go down it herself, I think she feels like she has to know whether this thing that's sort of haunted her her whole life is real or not. And I think Sharon just kind of really wanted to go to a party. I mean, the Witch's Road set was so incredible. It was so cool that they built an actual forest for us to walk through in many different ways. It was so epic. It felt expansive, but also so detailed. Every leaf is painted and there's different kinds of mushrooms with different sizes and patterns. And trees, really spooky trees. I think I was most impressed about how much they were able to change it. They would move a tree and now we're on a different part of the road. Or they would move a rock and they would make it feel so big, even though we could see the end of it. Like in the room you knew how big it was, but on screen you just have no idea. Magic. Mysterious. Unpredictable. I had no idea that it was going to have a song in it. And then when I found out it was Bobby and Kristen Lopez, I was really excited because I've always wanted to sing one of their songs because I think they're geniuses. And then to be able to, at that point, I think we'd have been working for a while, The Coven, and so it was exciting just to get to sing with the girls and the guy that I had fallen in love with. So it was very exciting. It was very exciting. The Witch's Road was so big we couldn't film at the studio where we were filming everything else, Trillith. We had to go to a different studio because it had a larger soundstage. And I think when, well, I can only speak for myself, when I walked onto the set, I started to cry. It was stunning in its majesty. I mean, I don't even know how to describe this except it just elevated my acting because of the environment I was in. And the artistry, the craftsmanship. And I understand that the production designer gave each of his crew a tree to design individually. And so we were constantly surprised as we walked The Witch's Road, what we were seeing. And I mean, the production value in this is extraordinary. Everybody was at the top of their game. And I was continually blown away by the visual that I'm now asked to act in, to live in. It just made me a better actor. You know, you never know how you're going to live with, communicate with, accept whatever actors when you meet them on a film set. This was so unique because we're all different. We all complement each other. And as I said earlier, you know, Jack created an equal environment, equal and supportive and loving environment, so that it was very easy to act with everybody, extremely easy to act with everybody, individually or as, you know, if we had scenes, collective scenes, there was respect, enormous respect. And I hope that I have this kind of experience for what remains of my career, because this was a high mark. This was a very high mark. I think the most exciting part of being able to do Agatha Along was the opportunity to work with Katherine Hahn again, both because I love her personally, but because her sense of Agatha is so enormous. There's so much there in her mind, body, spirit, and it is my job to come up with the story, but it was fueled by my understanding of what she's capable of, what interests her, and what I knew that audiences would enjoy seeing her do on screen. We did an enormous amount of research on witches. That was really a lot of the early days in the room. It's a little bit of, like, vamping as you're trying to figure out the story. I am not one for research myself, personally. I don't actually like that. So the way I sort of organized it was I have this fabulous team of writers, and I gave them assignments. So they would come in and do presentations on potions, on, you know, herbology, on divination. And some of the reason that I hired them, they already had passionate connections to various forms of witchcraft. So there was that, and then we spoke to a witch, which was really impactful. And then we were sort of devouring witchy content. We had crystals in the room. We lit candles and got in trouble. On the very first day of the room, we cast a spell. We were actually remote, and so I had my lovely assistant deliver spell kits to each of the writers' home. And we lit candles together and did a spell that was called the road opener spell. I think that, you know, there is so much there with Agatha Harkness. You know, like, that's really the challenge of making any series, is do you have enough? I come from the feature space, and so, like, with a feature, you have, I mean, depending on who you're making the feature for, you're making an hour and a half movie or a three-hour movie, depending. But like, you know, it is more finite, obviously. And with TV, you need so much more, there is so much more surface area. And with Agatha, because she is a liar and a performer, and she wears so many masks, to me, like, it's sort of like, it feels infinite. Because like, anytime you peel back a layer, there's going to be another layer of lies and performance underneath it. And that's really sort of the journey of the show, is peeling back those layers. So The Witch's Road, it's hard to remember the exact moments that, the moment where that kind of clicked. We, you know, we had the idea that, you know, I really wanted to put Agatha in a situation where she was forced to assemble a coven. Like, that seemed really like a terrific opportunity for both comedy and drama, because it's just all conflict all the time. And also, it had very sort of heisty vibes. And I, that seemed right for her, because she's a con artist. The fact that they were traveling the road, again, I mean, I think we needed what I like to call the container of like, what is the thing of the show? And, you know, The Witch's Road comic is terrific and much beloved. And so it was really kind of our jumping off point. It was the idea of like, well, we could take the notion of The Witch's Road, and we could, you know, really make it our own. So the tone of the series, the way that I describe it is two words, and it is Catherine Han. Like, that is the best way I can articulate what this show does. I mean, I think, you know, WandaVision had a real trick of a tone in that it, you know, was a comedy, it was a sitcom, it was broad, but it was very heartfelt moments of big drama, moments of big tragedy. And I very much wanted to carry that particular tone on into Agatha all along. But we have this added piece of horror and sort of like, I don't know, like teeth that we didn't have in WandaVision. And there's a darkness and that is all, it all sort of stems from Agatha, the character herself. And because Catherine is able to do all of these levels, like, she's really the way to conceive of what this show is. You know, so one of the questions in creating the show was, you know, how serious is it going to be? How far are we going to take things? And something that I think was even surprising to us, you know, to the writers, was, you know, what are the stakes? You know, like, initially, I think, you know, the risks were a little softer because, you know, we're making a comedy and it should be fun. But as we really got into the witchcraft and the lore of it, we realized that the stakes needed to be real and that we needed to put them in real peril. And that really dovetails with the practical element of the show, you know, the fact that there's like a very, like, visceral threats that are grounded in nature, that these are witches, you know, who are centuries old, but the threats are the same, you know, the threat of drowning, the threat of being burned, the threat, you know, of being buried alive, of being stoned. Like, this is, these were our tools and we take them really seriously. So yeah, the trials are sort of how we structure the episodes for kind of the midsection of the show. And with WandaVision, there was kind of like a cleaner line of how each episode functioned inside of like one type of, one specific era of sitcoms. In this show, the trials were our device, but there were, it was more than just one influence. You know, there was the burden of, you know, each trial was assigned to a distinct witch. So it was about her history and her arc and her particular growth. But then we tried very hard to tie that to something that was either directly or indirectly witchy. You know, in the case of Jen, you know, she's in the sort of Nancy Meyers, you know, big little lies type of space. And that's not, you don't think of witches in that space, but I do because like those are like covens of powerful duplicitous women. And so, you know, that was a, seemed, especially for the first trial, it seemed like such a fun place to start, such an unexpected environment for our witches. And also the idea of like the second they step in, they transform. I wanted the first trial to be the most startling transformation. So to have them go from their road kits, like into their, you know, coastal grandma chic looks seemed like the sort of biggest jump. And then, you know, all the sort of trials followed that same logic of it's tied to the witch, but how do we pull in, you know, other influences to create a distinct, discrete world. So with Agatha all along, I think what people can expect is, you know, a fun, scary ride, you know, that is how the show is pitched. That's what you see in the trailer. And it has all of those thrills and delights in kind of a horror slash horror comedy space. But it, you know, very much like WandaVision, you know, the show is front loaded with these kinds of thrills and all the theatricality of the costumes and the looks and the music. But also like WandaVision, you know, there is a great deal of depth to the show and we do go to dramatic places. So I think, you know, what people can expect is a thrill ride that, you know, ultimately is very emotionally affecting. You know, Marvel has a great tradition of listening to the audience and seeing what characters resonate with the fandom. You can go back to the comic books and see characters like Wolverine, who appeared in Incredible Hulk, kind of lighting a fire within the fan base and growing and becoming an X-Man and a huge iconic character in his own right. And Agatha is no different. She is a side character. She was a villain in WandaVision, but Jack Schafer's vision and the way Katherine Hahn embodied that character on screen made her an undeniable icon that we wanted to see more of in our own series. You know, Jack Schafer is one of the most remarkable filmmakers I've ever had the honor to work with. And when she becomes inspired by something, it inspires us. You know, her imagination is so vast and so incredible that her opening the door to us and letting us walk down that road with her was a real privilege. And her vision was so incredible for this character that we all became inspired and wanted to make the show. I would describe Agatha All Along as a fun Halloween adventure story for anyone that loves the Halloween season and is a fan of action and brave enough to maybe get a little bit scared at times. But it's also a surprisingly emotional story like you expect from a Jack Schafer show. I mean, Katherine Hahn took this character and really made her into an icon. And Jack surrounded her with other amazing characters and amazing actors to embody those characters in Agatha All Along. So it's so much fun to see Agatha who really has her own amoral way to look at the world being challenged by all these different personality types with their own agendas and their own outlooks and their own codes of ethics that oftentimes run contrary to her own. It's one of the greatest ensembles we've ever assembled in the MCU. These are the Avengers of Witches. And this coven, you know, thing about the Witches Road, which you'd learn over the course of the story, is that you can't just walk down the Witches Road with any old coven. I mean, you have to be a well-trained, well-oiled machine where everybody can predict each other's movements like a SEAL Team 6 going down the Witches Road. And that's not the case with this coven. They are assembled very quickly. They don't get along. They don't like each other. They don't know each other. They are not prepared at all for the challenges that await them. And that really brings about a lot of incredible drama and comedy along the journey. Well, you know, we used no green screen on this show. This is a show that embraced practical effects, practical magic. And it was really important to Jack to do this because she was trying to conjure an emotion that we perhaps hadn't felt on screen for, you know, 30, 40 years. You know, this realistic, tactile, dark fantasy feeling of the movies of the 70s and 80s and the techniques that they used back then to create larger-than-life effects. The music is crucial to this series. And it's crucial not just because, you know, we were inspired by the Agatha all along song from WandaVision and we were so excited that the Lopez's came back to write a new song for us. But also the song itself is key to the journey of the story. It's a spell. It has a function. It has different meanings. It has different meanings for each character. And as the show unfurls and you learn that the deeper messaging of this song in how it informs the story and informs these character journeys, it takes on a much deeper emotional resonance than, you know, just a theme song would. I think that they should expect a fun adventure story, a lot of surprises, a lot of thrills, a lot of laughs, and some real emotional heft that only Jack Schafer could bring to the screen.