Marvel Star Elizabeth Olsen Recalls Game of Thrones Audition: “It Was Awful”

Before she was the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Wanda Maximoff, Elizabeth Olsen scored an audition for Game of Thrones. The audition in question was for the character of Daenerys Targaryen, one of the show’s main characters and a role that ended up making Emilia Clarke a household name. As Olsen herself puts it, her try out for the role was nothing more than “awful.”

“Yes, I auditioned for Game of Thrones,” the WandaVision star tells THR. “I auditioned for, like, the assistant to the casting director in a small room in New York with just a camera on me and them reading the script. I was doing the Khaleesi speech when she comes out of the fire. It was awful. I didn’t get a callback.”

Olsen opened up on the situation back in 2019, saying she almost stopped the audition herself because of how awkward it was.

“It was for Khaleesi — she was just burned alive and then I start making this huge speech,” Olsen said at the time. “I was in the smallest room with the casting director, they didn’t even have a reader, and that was the furthest I ever got. It was that bad. It was horrible. I was like, ‘This is uncomfortable for me, I’m sure it’s awkward for her, no one’s going to enjoy this experience.’”

“I should have [stopped it],” she added. “I think I would now. I’d be, ‘I don’t think I’m going to do this any justice… hopefully call me back at a different time for something else.”

Coincidentally enough, Clarke has been cast in Marvel’s Secret Invasion, so both she and Olsen are now working in the same franchise.

“I just think what they’re doing right now is so exciting and so cool, and so on the cutting edge of it. I feel like they’re like the Apple of this world,” Clarke previously told ComicBook.com. “To be part of that family feels like, ‘Oh my god, I’m in the cool kid crowd. That’s so cool.’ Honestly speaking, the people that are making this are what pushed me over the line to really wanting to do it. I just think that everyone’s heart and heads are in the right place with this one.”

WandaVision is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+ while Game of Thrones can be streamed on HBO Max.

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