‘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.
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.
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.”
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.
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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
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.
