“I’m so used to doing press with him and I just miss him so much,” Olsen said at the premiere of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
PEOPLE: Elizabeth Olsen is taking a moment to think of her former onscreen husband while doing press for her latest Marvel movie.
The actress, 33, attended the premiere of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in Hollywood on Monday, the latest MCU franchise entry in which she reprises her role of Wanda Maximoff, also known as the Scarlet Witch.
Ahead of the film, Olsen spoke with PEOPLE, saying how it feels different this time around to be doing press and attending events without her former costar Paul Bettany. Bettany famously played Vision, a super-enhanced artificial intelligence that Olsen’s Wanda falls in love with over the course of the Avengers films and later, in the popular Marvel/Disney+ series WandaVision.
“I did text him last weekend and I was like, ‘I miss you,’ ” Olsen said, “because I’m so used to doing press with him and I just miss him so much and Wanda’s really alone in this film and I feel it as an actor.”
Bettany’s Vision character met his demise at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, and much of WandaVision recounts how Wanda grapples with his death — even creating a new version of him within a fabricated world.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, is the first MCU installment with Olsen that does not also include Bettany.
Regarding Wanda/Scarlet Witch’s enthusiastic fan base thanks to WandaVision, Olsen also said on Monday night that being able to do the series ahead of this new movie “was an amazing opportunity.”
“I think because of the experience that the audience and the fans have had with WandaVision, they’ll have a different perspective coming into Dr. Strange, and I’m excited for the journey they’re about to see Wanda go on in this film.”
Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, and Chiwetel Ejiofor also return for the Doctor Strange sequel, in which multiple universes clash and intertwine.
Cumberbatch last appeared in his Avengers role in last year’s record-breaking hit Spider-Man: No Way Home, which meshed multiverses in the Spidey realm, mixing Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s iterations of the character. Sam Raimi, who directed the early-2000s Maguire Spider-Man movies, directed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
“The movie is a journey into the Multiverse, so you do see different iterations of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, and even Lizzie Olsen’s character of Wanda Maximoff,” Raimi told Fandango last month. “So the actors have to play that. It’s a great challenge for them and great fun to direct them playing these altered versions of themselves.”
The director added, “I think Wanda’s magic, from Marvel lore, is more powerful than almost any of the other characters in this picture, but Doctor Strange has the knowledge of the mystic arts that Wanda doesn’t have, and he’s got the help of Kamar-Taj. If you were to pit them against each other, different altered versions of themselves … there could be a Doctor Strange out there that’s more powerful than our Wanda. Or there could be a Wanda out there who is more powerful than our Wanda here. So, because of these altered versions, it’s all a mixed bag of possibilities.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which follows 2016’s Doctor Strange, hits theaters Friday May 6.
