Elizabeth Olsen Wasn't Told Scarlet Witch Was the Villain in DOCTOR STRANGE 2 Until Three Weeks Before Filming
When Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hit theaters, fans got to see Scarlet Witch go full villain, and it turns out, this villainous story arc was a big surprise for Elizabeth Olsen.
During a panel at L.A. Comic Con (via Popverse), Olsen shared that she had no idea she was the movie’s big bad until she was just weeks away from stepping on set.
“I thought that I was in an ensemble cast, and I thought that I was one of the good guys. And then three weeks before I was sent to London, they said, ‘You're our lead villain!’
“And I had no clue. And I finished filming WandaVision, I was like, ‘Huh, it would've been helpful to know that,’ just so I could have pulled the thread through a bit.”
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wanda Maximoff gets corrupted by the Darkhold and starts tearing through the multiverse in search of alternate versions of her kids, Billy and Tommy.
The dark turn caught some fans off guard, especially after the emotional journey she went through in WandaVision. For Olsen, it was just as jarring.
“But I think that the story told itself, and I was able to kind of massage things in Doctor Strange to hopefully tell a different story for her.”
In an interview leading up to the film's release, Olsen opened up even more about the intense transition between wrapping WandaVision and diving straight into the Doctor Strange sequel.
“We literally finished WandaVision on a Wednesday and I flew to England on the Friday to make this film. I had just experienced a lot of WandaVision, but no one else on Doctor Strange had.
“It was trying to continue what we had done and what we had learned into this film as much as possible.”
It wasn’t easy keeping Scarlet Witch’s emotional continuity intact, especially since the Doctor Strange creative team wasn’t entirely up to speed on her Disney+ arc. Olsen explained that some much-needed conversations between WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer and Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron helped connect the dots.
“We didn’t have edits to share with anyone because we had just finished filming days before. So there’s a lot of overlap and a lot of influence from the experiences in WandaVision that [lead] into Doctor Strange.”
While Scarlet Witch hasn’t been seen in the MCU since the end of Multiverse of Madness, fans haven’t stopped hoping for her return. But, chances are we have not seen the last of Wanda Maximoff just yet.