Elizabeth olsen
Marvel’s Scarlet Witch casts a spell before seeing the light.
For someone who has just arrived in London off the red-eye from New York, Elizabeth Olsen is refreshingly chirpy. Introducing herself as ‘Lizzie’, she stands to greet Total Film when we meet her in a suite at the Soho Hotel in February, before relaxing back into a red sofa, her smiley demeanour revealing no signs of jetlag. She’s in town to talk
Captain America: Civil War, her second outing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda ‘Scarlet Witch’ Maximoff. After the Sokovian Disaster at the climax of Age Of Ultron (which claimed the life of her fleet-footed brother), she’s now part of the updated Avengers line-up. “She’s just kind of assimilating to a different culture,” explains Olsen. “I think there’s still an inner struggle of what all of it means exactly. But that, I think, is an ongoing figuring out that we’ll discover in the third phase a bit more too.”
One of the perks of joining the Avengers – besides official entry into the blockbuster leagues – is a swish new costume, comprising a red leather jacket and corset. “The new costume represents a more functional costume than the end of the last movie – which I could only stand in,” she laughs. “And I obviously don’t want to be in a leotard and headdress, so I’m happy with the full leather look.”
Leaving the superhero garb on set, today she’s wearing a black flowery sleeveless dress, with a cosy autumnal wrap that she shrugs on and off of her shoulders during our chat, her shoulder-length blond hair framing her strikingly huge, almost anime-proportioned eyes. Those eyes widen further when she talks about her continued involvement in the MCU, reprising a character for a sequel being a new experience for her. “It feels great,” she beams. “I’m actually even more excited to do the third one because… It’s a really specific skill working on these movies, one that you don’t learn unless you’re doing them. And I really felt like a fish out of water for
Ultron. You’re creating these hand movements that have never been established, and you’re creating an accent that doesn’t exist in the world. But I feel like I keep getting more confident revisiting the character.”
Beyond Civil War, the two-part Infinity War is evidently even more exciting. “I talked with the Russos a little bit about what the plan is for the next one, and it sounds really cool and exciting. But she still has an interesting journey in Civil
War that kind of kicks off the film.” Although she admits that she only grabs snatched pieces of information about the next films from her neighbours Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner (who live nearby), or when she hits the recording booth for Scarlet Witch’s ADR.
We might be getting ahead of ourselves calling Olsen by her superhero name, though; while comics fans and film geeks know Wanda by her crimson moniker, she was never actually referred to as Scarlet Witch in Age Of Ultron. “I know! I didn’t even realise that,” she muses. “I feel like it might be used in this movie, but I’m not sure because I never clocked it, so I’ve no idea.” Even though she’s not a Twitter user herself, she can’t contain her delight at one #ScarletWitch related element of Civil War’s marketing. “I saw that everyone had their own hashtags and then they had their own little emoji faces. That’s like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” she giggles. “I was like,‘Oh my God, I’m an emoji!’”
One week after Civil War opens, Olsen stars in another project that’s a million miles away from superpowers and promotional emojis.
I Saw The Light, a biopic of tragic country music star Hank Williams, sees her team up with another Marvel actor, Tom Hiddleston, in a “labour of love” project that couldn’t be more different to the superhero epic. “It was right after I had done my first Marvel movie, so it was interesting to hear from his perspective being a part of this system for so long, and for me to be this newbie,” she explains. “They were different perspectives.”
Calling Hiddleston – who she’s been romantically linked to off-screen, but denies a relationship – “a phenomenal actor”, Olsen points out that the cast and crew on I Saw The Light “became a true close-knit creative family”. Playing Audrey Mae Williams, Hank’s sometime wife and manager, she had plenty of source material to draw from, scouring the archives including the Williams family’s personal photographs and effects that are kept in storage at the Nashville Hall of Fame. There were also early morning radio shows, recreated in the film, that she could listen to. It presented an opportunity to portray a real person who’s not particularly well-liked in the annals of history.
“People thought she was very difficult and demanding and wanted to be the centre of attention,” she says. “So I tried to think, OK, well, that could be true, but also it’s the late 1940s. She was married to an alcoholic and someone who was addicted to painkillers, who was on the road sleeping with other women all the time. So I’m pretty sure she had a reason to be all those things. So I went into that movie trying to defend her legacy, really, because there aren’t that many people that do.”
The research contributed to a role that was “super-personal” for Olsen. “I think the best thing about watching a film is when you get to watch someone else go through something that you’re going through and you have something to relate to,” she says, but even with a heavygoing role of this sort, she never gets pretentious about the craft. She speaks honestly about trying to balance being on Audrey’s side with how best to tell the story. And even though it’s a serious subject, she makes the prep sound fun, not least the southern accent and, erm, unpolished singing voice that Audrey has (Olsen once again worked with her close friend, dialect coach Sarah Shepherd, who also guided her through Wanda’s Sokovian drawl). “It was a lot of fun to prep this one,” she smiles. “And also to try to figure out how to be not a great singer, but not so bad that it makes Hank Williams look like an idiot… We couldn’t make it comical!”
Up next is another character piece with another Marvel star – she’s starring as a federal agent with Jeremy Renner for Sicario screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut, Wind River. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she laughs. “I keep thinking about that. Why am I only working with actors that are in the Marvel universe? What does that mean?”
Ignoring that apparent rule of only working with fellow MCU players, it seems that Olsen’s approach to assessing roles is uncomplicated. Establishing the character, what the other actors will bring to the project, and who the director is surrounded by are all standard factors. “Also, meeting with the director and seeing what the personality is like [ is important],” she asserts. “I’m a pretty straightforward person, so I kind of need that on set as well.” Prior to Wind River, she took a nine-month break, during which she got bored at home and became desperate to get back on set. “There are things I wanted to work on I didn’t get,” she admits. “But then everything else, I didn’t really want to work on. So I was just kind of being patient. It’s horrifying to be patient, especially with a movie – you never know if it’s going to go until you sign a contract.”
The 27-year-old Californian broke out in spectacular fashion with her first proper role (besides brief appearances in older siblings Mary-Kate and Ashley’s work) in scorching Sundance drama Martha Marcy May Marlene, in 2011. Olsen is frank about the fact that, five years ago, she didn’t capitalise on that launchpad in the way she might have done with the gift of hindsight. “I didn’t really take advantage – like, I was new. That was the first movie I ever had come out. I’d only been working for six months. I didn’t understand anything about the business or careers. I just felt like a kid who was lucky to be working. So I don’t think I made strategic decisions after that.”
While she admits she might have responded to that sort of success differently a year or two
‘I don’t know what’s going on.
Why am I only working with actors
that are in the Marvel universe?’
ago, no regrets are harboured. “It was the process I had to go through… I also had a hard time believing in hype. I still don’t really believe in it. But I also know when to maybe take advantage of some kind of forward momentum now a bit better than I did then.”
Talking of momentum, Olsen is certainly powering forwards now. Pre- Ultron, she scored a blockbuster hit in Godzilla, but even that couldn’t quite prepare her for the Marvel juggernaut. “Godzilla to me was a balance of doing a big movie with a really artistic director and a really interesting cast, and I [ didn’t] have to do too much with greenscreen stuff,” she remembers. “But then with Marvel, it’s a whole new experience. Doing these films are just totally different. There’s an amazing skill to be learned doing them. I’ve never really felt like I’ve had some sort of consistent community as an actor until Marvel, and that feels really cool. I love the group we work with.”
Outside of the MCU, she’s started to develop her own projects, including a TV series she’s hoping will happen in the next couple of years. She’s also itching to get back on the stage. While she doesn’t see herself directing, the producer role appeals. “I do like being in control of the team that comes together,” she says. “Because as an actor, you’re just there for the middle part, and to have some control in the middle and the end would be a really amazing luxury. So I’m trying to figure that out a little bit more now that I understand things better.”
While a Marvel movie might not allow for a ton of improv or flexibility (“I can’t really do that when we have 12 superheroes in a room trying to pick up their cue,” she jokes), it has given her some sort of, well, power. “I think it’s helped me be able to finance jobs independently, and that really means so much.”
With a bucket-list of directors to work with including the likes of Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino, she’s hoping she can have her cake and eat it. “There’s always a big fear before you sign onto a big movie where you’re like, ‘Oh God, will Spike Jonze be interested in me now?’” she laughs. “If people want to work with you, they want to work with you. And if they don’t they don’t. It’s a lot of accepting what you can’t control.”
As our conversation draws to a close, she exudes the quiet confidence of someone who’s very much in control and now knows when to strike while the iron is hot. “Right now, I’m just trying to enjoy myself, really. Right now, I’m really trying to have a good fucking time and love myself,” she smiles. “I’m excited to be back [ on a set] and doing it, and now I don’t want to stop. So right now I’m just trying to fit in as much variety as possible before Marvel takes me away for nine months again...” Captain America: Civil War opens on 29 April. I Saw The Light opens on 6 May.