Elizabeth Olsen Explains How Doctor Strange 2 Honors WandaVision
Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch has had quite a journey throughout her time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character first appeared in the post-credits scenes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier back in 2014 and went on to play an important role in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. However, it wasn't until WandaVision that Olsen really got to fully form the character and officially make her the Scarlet Witch. After the events of WandaVision, Wanda is back in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and she's dealing with the loss of her children in a dark way. In a recent interview with Variety, Olsen explained how her role in the new Doctor Strange honors the WandaVision version of her character despite getting scary.
"There were just beats that I felt like were almost too similar, as opposed to reflective. I just wanted everything to feel like some version of an advancement, even if the advancement is someone feeling a different reaction to the pain and loss. We also haven't seen her have a reaction to what happened in Westview. Even if we watched her go through trauma and loss, we haven't seen her go through the loss of the children. I think, for any parent – I would assume, because I'm not one – the loss of the child would always be much harder than the loss of anyone else important in your life. I just wanted to make sure it was a constant evolution forward and not repetitive. And so it was just slight adjustments. I couldn't do any major changes because sets were being built and things like that. And schedules were being made, although in flux. But, yeah, I was trying to figure out how do we not be repetitive? How do we create an evolution? How do we make this different but still part of the woman that we know?"
Olsen recently had a chat with ComicBook.com, and we asked the actor if she was worried about how Wanda would be perceived after this new movie.
"I think the thing that I worry about is when people start saying, 'Is she a role model to children?,' Olsen explained. "And I don't like answering that question at all because she is a woman who's made big mistakes, and I don't want to think of her as a role model, encouraging kids to make similar violent mistakes." She added, "Yeah. The only thing that worries me is she became this thing that even little kids loved and then we're really pushing it with this one. So that's the one thing where I'm like, 'I don't want to answer role model questions.'"
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing in theatres.