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Press/Video: Variety’s Virtual TV Fest – Marvel

‘WandaVision,’ ‘Falcon and Winter Soldier’ and ‘Loki’ Stars on Missing Tom Hiddleston’s Lectures and Who Texts Kevin Feige the Most

VARIETY: Being a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe equips its stars with unique powers both on-screen and off.

“We all have a number sign above our heads when we make independent films [for] whether or not we can sell them internationally to help get financing,” says Elizabeth Olsen. “If we want to do that, it does allow us to be able to do that. So, I think that’s a great benefit to being a part of such a huge international franchise.”

Olsen first appeared as Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, in Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Age of Ultron” in 2015 before going onto such films as “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Endgame.” In-between she worked on indies including “Ingrid Goes West” and the television series “Sorry for Your Loss” for Facebook Watch. This past television season, though, she brought her big-screen superhero to Disney Plus, headlining “WandaVision” alongside Paul Bettany.

The ability to flit between platforms at all can be special for actors, but to do so with the same character is a testament to the power of the MCU. And Olsen and Bettany were only the first to move from film to TV under the Marvel Studios banner. Soon they were followed by Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and Tom Hiddleston in “Loki,” all of whom are taking part in a special panel at Variety’s Virtual TV Fest.

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Filed under: Marvel, Press, Videos, WandaVision

June 10 2021

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Press: (RUMOR) Wanda Will Reportedly Be Responsible For The Sinister Six Entering The MCU

WE GOT THIS COVERED: As far as we know, Elizabeth Olsen isn’t involved in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but she has been rumored for a cameo appearance just like virtually anyone to have ever appeared in either a Sony or Marvel Studios movie involving the web-slinger in some fashion over the last two decades.

Whether she winds up putting in an appearance or not, we can gather that Tom Holland’s third solo outing will be the middle chapter in a multiversal trilogy, bookended by Disney Plus’ WandaVision and next March’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. So, even if Scarlet Witch doesn’t show up in person during No Way Home, you can guarantee that her fingerprints will still be all over the broad strokes of the plot.

Of course, the majority of the most recent speculation surrounding the MCU threequel has revolved around the Sinister Six, with three members each hailing from both the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb timelines. And we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us Captain America 4 with Anthony Mackie was in the works long before it was confirmed – that Wanda will be responsible for them entering the MCU.

According to our information, it’ll be tied to WandaVision‘s post-credits scene, where the franchise’s most powerful hero hears her children calling out to her from a different reality. This causes Scarlet Witch to go on a tear through the multiverse to try and find them, with the butterfly effect eventually weakening the barriers and allowing Green Goblin, Sandman, Doctor Octopus, Lizard, Electro and Rhino to make their way to the present day timeline where they’ll cause some serious trouble for Peter Parker, presumably leading to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s protagonist roping in a bit of multiversal backup of his own to try and even the odds in his favor.

Filed under: Marvel, Press

June 08 2021

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Press: Kaley Cuoco & Elizabeth Olsen On WandaVision, The Flight Attendant, and Sitcoms | Actors on Actors

Filed under: Interviews, Press, Videos

June 08 2021

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Press: Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ Season 14 to Feature Elizabeth Olsen and More

VARIETY: Variety and PBS SoCal are gearing up for the 14th season of their Emmy-winning series “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.”

The new season, which premieres on June 18 on PBS SoCal, features Kaley Cuoco and Elizabeth Olsen, Ewan McGregor and Pedro Pascal, and Emma Corrin and Regé-Jean Page among the pairs.

This season’s conversations are:
Kaley Cuoco (“The Flight Attendant”) with Elizabeth Olsen (“WandaVision”)
Ewan McGregor (“Halston”) with Pedro Pascal (“The Mandalorian”)
Nicole Kidman (“The Undoing”) with Chris Rock (“Fargo”)
Emma Corrin (“The Crown”) with Regé-Jean Page (“Bridgerton”)
Kathryn Hahn (“WandaVision”) with Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”)
Josh O’Connor (“The Crown”) with Anya Taylor-Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit”)
Bowen Yang (“Saturday Night Live”) with Jean Smart (“Hacks”)
Uzo Aduba (“In Treatment”) with Billy Porter (“Pose”)
Gillian Anderson (“The Crown”) with Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

The new season, filmed entirely from the actors’ homes, includes exclusive, one-on-one conversations between actors from potential Emmy-contending series.

Clips will appear on Variety.com a day before Variety’s Actors on Actors issue hits newsstands on June 9.

The four episodes will premiere on PBS SoCal on June 18 at 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m., 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and re-air on KCET on July 2 at 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. All episodes will stream on pbssocal.org and on the free PBS Video app following their premieres. “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors” will air on PBS stations across the nation starting in June and on World Channel later this summer (check local listings).

“We are thrilled to present ‘Variety Studio: Actors on Actors’ to showcase this season’s top award-contending talent,” said Michelle Sobrino-Stearns, president and group publisher of Variety. “We are grateful to our wonderful partner, PBS SoCal, for continuing to support this multi-Emmy award-winning show.”

Filed under: News

June 07 2021

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Press: “It’s a New Day”: THR Drama Actress Roundtable

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Gillian Anderson had been dreading this. A tripod had arrived at her home in the U.K., along with a mess of lights and, really, just the thought of having to sit through an hour-plus on Zoom had her practically reeling. But then the woman who stuns as Margaret Thatcher in the most recent season of Netflix’s The Crown got talking — about pigeonholing and pay equity, about grieving and giving oneself over — and soon she didn’t want to stop talking. And neither did anyone else — The Queen’s Gambit‘s Anya Taylor-Joy, Pose‘s Mj Rodriguez, Genius: Aretha‘s Cynthia Erivo, WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen and Ratched‘s Sarah Paulson — at THR’s annual (virtual) Drama Actress Roundtable.

Let’s start easy. Complete this sentence: On set, I’m the one who is most likely to be …

GILLIAN ANDERSON Hiding in a corner. (Laughter.)

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY Pacing whilst moving my hands like this (waving above) trying to figure out what it is that I’m doing.

SARAH PAULSON Bossing everyone around.

ELIZABETH OLSEN Probably trying to make the crew laugh.

At the same time, you’re also inhabiting characters for long stretches and often they require you to go to dark or heavy places. What happens when a director yells, “Cut”? Do they come home with you?

MJ RODRIGUEZ I try to separate myself from Blanca as much as possible, especially [because we’re] dealing with immense trauma. So, when I go home, it’s Michaela Jaé going home, and I bring Blanca to the set. It’s easier that way because it can weigh on you otherwise and wash off on your family.

TAYLOR-JOY I wish I had as much control over it. For me, there are some characters that you can very easily snap in and out of and then there are other ones like Beth in The Queen’s Gambit. I’d worked back-to-back on two projects with one day off in between, so by the time I got to filming the show, I was exhausted and there was no energy to create a barrier. And that was potentially the toughest thing about the show, because it was a wonderful experience as an actor to be able to not have to reach for any emotion, but then you also have to go through the psychological warfare of figuring out, “Why do I feel so awful in the morning?” Like, “What is happening?” And then you go, “Oh, it’s not my feelings,” but I have to sit in them all day and I have to be aware enough to go, “You are not depressed, the character is depressed, and at some point that will leave you.” But I do think a bath every single night — being able to have the visual representation of washing yourself clean of something — helps.

OLSEN Regardless of what exactly the day requires of you, emotionally, you’re just tired. And so you try to be patient and professional and kind, and then when you go home, that’s when your fuse is just … smaller. (Laughter.)

TAYLOR-JOY You should date us, we’re fabulous.

Cynthia, I’ve heard you say that after making Harriet, you had a mini breakdown, and I can’t imagine Aretha was any easier to let go of …
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Filed under: Interviews, Videos

June 03 2021

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Press: The Oral History of ‘WandaVision’

Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, and more tell the story of how the year’s biggest, boldest show came together

ROLLING STONE: It was the monoculture all along. Marvel’s WandaVision debuted on Disney+ on January 16th, timed perfectly for a pandemic-pummeled nation fresh from an assault on its Capitol so outlandish it could’ve been pulled from MCU outtakes. WandaVision was a turducken of cultural comfort food, a loving tribute to sitcom history with supernatural mystery and superheroics bubbling underneath: “a combination of Nick at Nite and Marvel,” in the words of series director Matt Shakman, all of it driven by themes of grief and loss that also fit its era all too well.

With Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprising their movie roles as Wanda Maximoff and Vision, fiction’s only witch-synthezoid couple, the show was also the first Marvel Studios TV venture to truly connect to its culture-conquering movies (not to mention the first Marvel project after a lengthy break, since Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019).

In a major vindication of Disney’s retro, anti-Netflix, once-a-week release schedule, WandaVision topped streaming charts, which, in a stay-at-home-and-stream moment, made it feel like everyone was watching. In the process, it even spawned a hit song of sorts, with “Agatha All Along,” the theme for the show’s villain, Kathryn Hahn’s brassy Agatha Harkness. Here’s a look back at how they pulled it all off.

In 1964, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Wanda Maximoff, known from the start in the comic books as the Scarlet Witch. Originally, she was a sort-of villain in the X-Men comics, and later embraced heroism and joined the Avengers. By 1968, Lee’s protégé, Roy Thomas, was writing The Avengers, and needed more members for the team. Thomas (with artist John Buscema) came up with the Vision, loosely inspired by a 1940s character with the same name, and soon began developing a Scarlet Witch-Vision romance.

Roy Thomas: Stan said, “I want the new Avenger to be an android.” So I made up a new Vision, and made him an android. I swiped the diamond symbol on his chest from an old 1940s character I liked called Spy Smasher. John [Buscema] added the jewel on his forehead, which was initially just a design element. I guess in the movies, they made it an Infinity Stone. Somehow it was just natural to have Vision and Scarlet Witch attracted to each other. The whole idea was he was supposed to be a very human robot — in his second appearance I had him shedding tears. So it made sense for him to have a romance. But we didn’t have a lot of women around to have a romance with. Black Widow was taken. The Wasp was taken. And there was the Scarlet Witch, the extra girl at the dance! It worked out well, but it was pretty much luck that it happened. A romance of convenience.

In the comic books over the years, the Scarlet Witch became more and more powerful, and developed a complex relationship with a witch named Agatha Harkness, who tutored her in magic. In the Eighties, Scarlet Witch and Vision tried to settle down in suburbia, and had kids who later turned out to be mystical creations with souls borrowed from a demon. (It happens.) In 2016, the comic-book Vision returned to the suburbs, building a different, robotic family, in a surreal series from writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta.

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Filed under: Marvel, Press, WandaVision

June 02 2021

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Video: Wandavision – Panel Conversation – Variety Streaming Room

Actors Elizabeth Olsen, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, head writer / executive producer Jac Schaeffer and director / executive produce Matt Shakman of “WandaVision” join Variety’s Angelique Jackson in the Variety Streaming Room presented by Disney+ for an exclusive Q&A discussing clips from the show.

After losing her love Vision, Wanda Maximoff undergoes a dissociative event and creates a world where he is alive, and they can start a family. Fueled by Wanda’s comfort in sitcoms, her TV reality embodies an ever-manageable suburban existence, but when Wanda’s denial is challenged, so is the reality.

Filed under: Marvel, Videos, WandaVision

May 27 2021

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Video: Conversations at Home with WANDAVISION

A Q&A with Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Teyonah Parris, Kathryn Hahn, Kat Dennings, and Randall Park of WANDAVISION. Moderated by Jenelle Riley, Variety.

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing the most comprehensive, educational and state-of-the-art resources to SAG-AFTRA members. The Foundation believes that the contributions made to our culture by performing artists are not only valuable, but essential.

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation relies entirely on donations to provide emergency assistance and free educational programs to SAG-AFTRA artists. This conversation is made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters.

Over the past year, the Foundation has given over $6.5 million in disaster relief to more than 7,000 performers. If you are a SAG-AFTRA artist and need help, please ask. And, if you can help, please give at: https://sagaftra.foundation/donate

All oTnations are tax-deductible.

Filed under: Videos, WandaVision

May 27 2021

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Gallery: Glamour (Spain)

GALLERY LINKS
Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 004
Magazine Scans > 2021 > Glamour Spain (June)

Filed under: Magazine Scans, Photoshoots

May 22 2021

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Press: Stars of Marvel’s ‘Loki,’ ‘WandaVision’ and ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Join Variety’s Virtual TV Fest

VARIETY: Variety is pleased to announce the final programming for its second annual Virtual TV Festival, presented by Amazon Advertising, airing on June 8, 9 and 10. An exclusive panel with the stars of Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” “Loki” and “WandaVision” will premiere on Wednesday, June 9. This will be the first time that the stars of all three shows will appear together in one panel. Paul Bettany, Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan will come together to talk about the three shows and how they co-exist in the Marvel Universe.

In addition, Variety will host a “Women in Late Night” panel with Samantha Bee (“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee”), Phoebe Robinson (“Doing the Most With Phoebe Robinson”), Amber Ruffin (“The Amber Ruffin Show”) and Ziwe (“Ziwe”). The women will discuss the changing landscape of late-night programming on network and streaming services.

Variety’s Virtual TV Fest features a keynote conversation, “Reaching TV Streaming Audiences With Amazon”, in which Marie Donoghue, vice president of global sports video, Amazon; Ryan Pirozzi, co-head of content and programming, IMDb TV; and Lauren Anderson, co-head of content and programming, IMDb TV discuss Amazon’s ad-supported streaming video content.

“Amazon Advertising is thrilled to partner with Variety on TV Fest, and speak about our robust TV content, including live sports and IMDb TV,” said Mark Eamer, VP, OTT, brand advertising at IMDb TV. “Today’s TV audiences want a compelling and convenient viewing experience, and we look forward to highlighting our on-demand and live options for sports, originals, and catalog favorites with TV Fest attendees.”

A Documentary roundtable with the producers and directors of some of the top Emmy-contending projects will include:

Josh Kriegman, executive producer and director, “Couples Therapy” (Showtime)

Hao Wu, director and producer, “76 Days” (MTV Documentary Films)

Brian Armstrong, executive producer, co-director and co-writer, “Secret of the Whales” (Disney Plus)

Stephen Kijack, producer and director, “Equal” (HBO Max)

Matthew Heineman, director, “The Boy From Medellin” (Amazon Prime)

Jehane Noujaim, executive producer and director, “The Vow” (HBO)

Christina Clusiau, director, “Immigration Nation” (Netflix)

Jane Cha, executive producer, “Dear…” (Apple TV Plus)

Rashidi Harper, executive producer, “Hip Hop Uncovered” (FX)

Variety’s TV Fest will also feature a non-fiction reality roundtable featuring Heidi Schreck, executive producer, “What the Constitution Means to Me”; Padma Lakshmi, host and executive producer, “Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi”; Smriti Mundhra, creator and executive producer, “Indian Matchmaking,” and Steve James, director, producer, cinematographer, editor, “City So Real.”

The panel discussion “Artisans of Unscripted” will feature Jamal Sims, choreographer, “RuPaul’s Drag Race”; Leland, music and lyrics, “RuPaul’s Drag Race”; James McGowan, set design, “The Challenge: Double Agents and The Real World” and Skye Topic, casting, “The Challenge: Double Agents.”

Filed under: Marvel, Press Conferences, Upcoming Event, Videos

May 22 2021

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