Elizabeth Olsen talks fame, Scarlet Witch and why she’s feeling the pressure for Marvel’s WandaVision

Elizabeth Olsen opens up on mental health and how Marvel’s WandaVision blends sitcom homage into a story about grief.

Elizabeth Olsen has always had very pragmatic approach to fame and celebrity.

The American actor saw both up close from a very early age when her older sisters, twins Ashley and Mary-Kate, became global superstars thanks to their roles on Full House.

Elizabeth used to go along to tapings of the hugely popular ‘80s and ‘90s sitcom and also briefly appeared in it herself – and while it helped give her the acting bug at a young age, it also seemed to her like a lot of hard work. She’d also seen the darker side of life in the spotlight thanks to Mary-Kate’s battles with eating disorders.

“I think that’s why I didn’t want to do it as a kid – because it was a hardworking job,” she says via Zoom call from London, where she has been shooting Doctor Strange In the Multiverse Of Madness. “I think it was something I kind of fantasised to do as an adult.”

Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff in Marvel's Captain America: Civil War

Olson, now 31, made an immediate impact with her first feature film role in the acclaimed 2011 thriller Martha Marcy Mae Marlene and her star has been on the rise ever since. Her profile went to another level when she was cast as Wanda Maximoff – aka Scarlett Witch – in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with her first major appearance in 2015’s Age Of Ultron, followed by roles in Captain America: Civil War and then Avengers: Infinity War and its record-breaking sequel Avengers: Endgame.

But although she’s now an integral part of the most successful film franchise ever, which has made nearly $30 billion over 23 films since 2008, she still struggles to reconcile the passionate fan attention that comes with it.

“To me, I just think of it as there’s an element that you can’t control and there is an element that you can control when it comes to fame and celebrity and those words that are strange to personalise,” she says. “It’s such a large other entity that I don’t really feel connected to. I think I just try to dare to be boring.”

Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany as Vision in a scene from WandaVision.

Olsen will be front and centre for the MCU’s first foray into television with WandaVision, which streams on Disney+ from Friday and she freely admits she’s feeling the pressure to continue the studio’s astonishing big-screen winning streak in a new medium.

The six-part series, which co-stars Paul Bettany as Vision, is also homage to sitcoms through the decades, putting it squarely in Olsen’s wheelhouse, with Marvel boss Kevin Feige admitting Full House was an influence on the “’90s” episode.

Adding to the sense of fan anticipation is the fact that 2020 was the first year since 2009 without an MCU film due to release dates being pushed back to the coronavirus pandemic. Production on WandaVision was also stalled because of studio COVID safety protocols, but Olsen says the ongoing lockdowns around the world have given the show an added layer of meaning.

“The pressure is different than usual – but it’s exciting,” she says. “I think our show is really unique and I think it’s a perfect entry into television for the MCU. The whole story needs to be told on television – the medium is intrinsic to the story we are telling so I think it’s kind of a delicious, hopefully entertaining, show.

Elizabeth Olsen in WandaVision, which pays homage to sitcoms through the decades.

“And it really is in a sense about trying to figure out what’s comfortable when you’re wanting to create a bubble for the people that you love and I feel like we are all dealing with that in many ways.”

As with all Marvel movie projects, with which the new TV shows such as WandaVision, and the coming Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki will be closely intertwined, a shroud of secrecy surrounds WandaVision ahead of its release, making Olsen choose her words carefully when asked to describe what fans can expect.

“It’s pretty Twilight Zone,” she decides. “And it really kind of feels like a twisted sit-com that is being eaten away at by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a series that uses American sitcoms throughout all the decades to tell an emotional journey of these characters while the Marvel Cinematic Universe is constantly challenging it.”

Fans have long been speculating how Bettany’s Vision is back, having apparently died at the hands of the villainous Thanos during Infinity War. Again, Olsen is evasive on the topic, other than saying that “our story is largely about many stages of grief”.

“I know that Wanda as a character represents mental health in the comic books, basically,” she says. “She’s a larger metaphor for mental illness.”

Paul Bettany returns as Vision in WandaVision, despite having apparently died in Avengers: Infinity War.

All of Olsen’s appearances in the MCU so far have been in ensemble movies, where “you are fulfilling a tone or a shade or a colour of the film” and she says she’s grateful for the chance to dig a little deeper so audiences can have a “three dimensional, 360 experience of Wanda”.

“Deeper, but also wider,” she says. “I don’t get to be the funny person in these movies and there is not a lot of levity for her in the ensemble pieces and so I feel like we get to explore a lot of the playfulness and fun and charm.

“And then at the same time, the other thing we get to discover and as I get older doing this, she started in Ultron with late-adolescent angst and is now a woman with children. She’s also becoming a more assured person in the world of herself, so that’s also a nice expansion of her character.”

As to whether Scarlett Witch will display any as-yet unseen abilities that might support the theory she in fact the most powerful superhero in a franchise that includes Hulk, Thor and Captain Marvel, Olsen is not sharing.

“Well, you will just have to watch and see,” she says coyly. “But that’s what I have always known of her. I think what’s hard about her as a character is that heroes need limits. She’s pretty limitless and it’s almost like she is only as limited as she makes herself to be. And that’s something I have always been interested in – she’s her own worst enemy. She doesn’t technically have a physical Achilles heel – but she gets in her own way.”

WandaVision streams on Disney+ from Friday.