Elizabeth Olsen, who played the Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron, was recently interviewed by USA Today and was asked a series of questions regarding her portrayal of the Omega-Level Mutant…though I don’t think they are allowed to call her that in the Marvel movies. Oh, fun with legal loopholes and intellectual property rights!
The first question they asked Olsen was that if she feels any kind of connection or ownership to the role to which she replied, “Absolutely! I have a movement coach for the way she throws her hexes so I’m very protective over that. It’s something that was created out of whatever uniquely that we made up for the first film. Now we have this huge attachment to it and we don’t want to see it messed up. It’s not like there’s stunt rehearsal for it —she and I go create it and then people say yes or no. We have a trajectory plan of how we want it to evolve and change. That creative physical power is really cool.” The interviewer than inquired to if Olsen had any advice for people going as Scarlet Witch for Halloween. “I have no idea. (Laughs) I don’t understand cosplay as it is because I never really liked Halloween as a kid. But dressing up is fun for people, so as long as they are having a good time, I guess that’s all that counts.”
What about the level of secrecy involved with working on something like Age of Ultron? Did Scarlet Witch know of………SPOILERS……….a certain person’s death before hand? “Yeah, but it’s also like a superhero movie. It’s insane but they just made a whole television series (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) about a dead guy. (Laughs) So who knows? But we did always know how that was going to end. At the same time, they had to shoot two endings because they didn’t want the crew to know or want it to get out. They did an incredible job of keeping that under wraps.” Are there any quirks or rules to working with Marvel? “When you get the pages that you’re filming that day, you’re not allowed to take those home with you. They account for everyone at the end of the day and then they shred it. I took this one photograph, it was actually on (Civil War). Barry, who’s our security guy and is amazing, he can detect a paparazzi from like a 15-mile radius. He’s incredible. Obviously he can’t lock down public streets and bridges and things like that, but he locks down everything he can. I have this photo of Jenny my movement coach and I posing for a photo on my phone, and then in the background we asked Barry to try and interrupt us and scream at us. They have a zero tolerance policy for releasing photos on a set. It’s pretty serious — you feel like you’re doing something for the government and you’re making a movie.”
Sounds like Marvel has a pretty tight rein on things, no? Elizabeth Olsen was then asked what the Scarlet Witch was up to during Captain America: Civil War and she answered, “She’s coming into her own and starting to understand and have conflict with how she wants to use her abilities. It’s a dramatic conflict within her and obviously there’s conflict within the (Avengers) as well. I like that they didn’t release Scarlet Witch in the promo photos for the teams — it places her as being a wild card, and I like her having that kind of edge that people don’t know what she’s capable of. They can fear her because she is so incredibly powerful in a different way than the rest of the heroes for the most part. I like playing that role within the gang.”
Finally, Olsen weighs in on the current thought that there is an over-saturation of superhero movies (everybody always gets that question). “I’m having fun doing them and I’m also having a lot of fun doing other things as well. It’s not a make-or-break thing but obviously I don’t think they’re going to go away. I mean, they’ve been around my entire childhood and they go back to television shows in the ‘50s so that’s just a silly thing to say. (But) it’s very bizarre the finances behind making movies at studios — either they have $200 million or they have like $2 million. Films that are middle budget are very hard to make. So it’s a very strange time right now financially in film and that’s why so many people are going to Netflix and Amazon and creating miniseries. That’s where they can tell the stories that aren’t being told through film. That has to event out at some point – it can’t just be tentpoles and more tentpoles.”
