Anyone who watched “WandaVision” knows Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, just wants to be with her family. However, any reformed antihero progress we saw in the Disney+ series shatters in the first moments of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Wanda goes full-on horror movie villain when trying to reach her children in an alternate universe (Yes, they are very real and not just constructs of her mind). Add in the corrupting Dark Hold spells, and Wanda fully descends into a serial killer monster of a mother. And even actress Elizabeth Olsen had her doubts about the character switch-up. “I knew I was going to be in ‘Doctor Strange’ but thought I was going to be, like, in an ensemble thing. So at first, I think I was nervous and conflicted because I hadn’t finished ‘WandaVision’ yet, but we were almost finished. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, how do I make this all work together?’” Olsen told Variety. “It became an amazing opportunity to have people be won over by this woman in ‘WandaVision’ and feel for her, and then, you know, manipulate them into this film, where they get to be on her side and then feel conflicted themselves.”
She continued, “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.” However, Olsen added, “I was also supposed to kill more. I had a hard time with it. I was like, these are human beings and Wanda is OK with ending their lives? But I just had to buckle down and think all these people are in her way and she’s warned Doctor Strange [Benedict Cumberbatch] not to get in her way. And he did. He didn’t listen. And so I just had to go from that point of view.” And after the Scarlet Witch snapped the necks of the Illuminati (albeit in an alternate universe) and eventually made peace with the loss of her sons, it’s unclear whether Wanda will return to the MCU on the big screen. “It’s weird that I’m expecting to return but no one’s told me I’m doing anything!” Olsen said. “But in my mind, I’m just making the assumption that they’ll have me again. I don’t know to what capacity, but I hope I’m back. I hope there’s also more fun to be had in something different. Where do we go? I feel like we’ve done so much with her. It’s been really a wild couple years with her.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
