‘WandaVision's’ Elizabeth Olsen Reveals How She Transformed For Every Episode

How soon after shooting Endgame did you know that Marvel wanted to make a TV show about Wanda and Vision? We were at this, Infinity War had just come out, and I think we were about to go to picking up what we didn't film for Endgame, because we kind of filmed them at the same time. And I was in LA, Kevin Feige asked me to come in for a meeting, and he and Lou Desposito let me know that Disney Plus was launching, they were starting this streaming service, and so they were giving Marvel the opportunity to bring some of the MCU onto the television streaming service. And so that kind of freaked me out, because I'm so used to these characters being on these huge group experiences that people have, and to think about these characters being morphed to a small TV screen kind of freaked me out, because they're kind of larger than my characters as superheroes. So that was intimidating. But that's when Kevin told me, which was his nucleus of the idea of the story they wanted to tell about Wanda and Vision living in the suburbs through the guise of American sitcom, and have this Twilight zoney aspect to it. And so I thought that was awesome. And so I was excited by that, and intimidated by the—I'm used to being able to dissolve into an ensemble in these movies, and so it was kind of scary to step up in that way. But most things that are scary are, you know, worth it. And I understand that you went through a kind of sitcom boot camp prior to shooting. What specific things did you pick up doing that? Well, we really try to make everything very era-specific. So for me, you know, just trusting the hair, the makeup, the costumes, Jess, our DP with his lenses and his lighting, and I was responsible for my voice and my diction and my posture and moving through space. And so it was really specific to, you know, every, like, when you're an actor, it's like all the geeky things, like where—what part of your voice are women speaking from? Where—like, what is the rhythm and the pattern and the diction and the language of speech? And so it was just kind of getting into that mode, which isn't specific to the time, it's specific to the sitcoms of the time, which was really fun because it's not a grounded thing. It's something that you're kind of allowing yourself to send up, which feels wrong as an actor, but feels so good. What was the difference between, like, when you did the 50s stuff versus when you were like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s? Like, what changed? The 70s women were allowed—it was almost like there was a relaxation of even just, like, women and social behavior, and so that would affect their voices and the tone that they can take. We just don't know what to expect. Instead of it being also kind of, like, you know, higher in level. We don't have an anniversary or a song. Well, and so the 70s, even though it's this really strange Brady Bunch aspirational time in this sitcom land, women were still able to kind of have a little bit more control or something, something that just grounded them a bit more in their voice. And then as we got into the 80s, with the teachable moments and how sincere everything was, that was just really funny. And then as we move into the aught and into the 2010s, comedy, this sitcom, becomes really cynical. The humor of, like, Malcolm in the Middle and then Modern Family become incredibly cynical, and that's what we found comforting, for whatever reason, as a society. And so it was just fun when we were in this boot camp to kind of not only just chart the physical changes, you know, as tools, but also, like, what was comedy for history of that time? Like, the fact that Brady Bunch is a result of, like, Vietnam or, you know, Rosemary's Baby's a film and Brady Bunch was on television, it doesn't make any sense to me. But for whatever reason, that's what the consumer was watching at home. How do you keep a hold on who Wanda is with such a wide range of experience of literal places that she's in and the sort of stories she's telling? You just trust the writing. You know, this character, her core central life is the life experience we have watched her have and know that she has had through the films, and it's like a lot of trauma and processing and this kind of resenting of her own abilities and her powers. And we're just putting, like, a whole shade or cloth over that of, like, this is her trying to not be found out in the suburbia, but she's also in a sitcom. And so she's playing the part as best she can as well. So it's not it's not that this is, you know, the same exact thread from Ultron, but it is this woman is doing the best she can in this sitcom herself. And I think what the thing that as an actor that was fun for me in this show was when the sitcom and what we know is like the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, the tension that's like pulled between the two of them, like the acting of what that tension is, is what was fun for me as an actor, because you're just kind of peeling away and revealing bits that you're not revealing everything. And so that was living in that tension throughout this whole series is was was like my playground. Wanda is also the main character in a way that she never was in the movies. And for the first time, she's being written largely by women. How do you feel like that has affected the character? This whole show feels very female and in a really like guttural pelvic floor way. I told Catherine that she was the pelvic floor of our show because she really is just like she's just such a solid person and who she is and what she brings. And I do feel that in our show and in and in the way we tell our story. And I think largely what it also did, because I don't want to take away from all the men that were on our show, but we did have this very feminine energy of just large collaboration, large teamwork, lots of dialogue, lots of open communication, lots of feedback, which I think generally speaking, one would say maybe is more feminine than masculine, which is a complete generalization. And I know that. But that was the tone of our show. And that is how we always worked through our days and how we worked through a year of working 110 days of a shoot, I think. And we always had that open communication dialogue from the boot camp until our last days on set, even like in post-production. I've been able to see things in different versions before, you know, final cut. And I that's a really nice thing. I'm not going to give notes, but it's a very nice thing for them to offer up, you know. And so it's just been it's been a great experience.