What a Wanda-ful world
The Marvel universe comes to the small screen in one of the strangest shows of the year, WandaVision. Michael Idato reports on this sort-of sitcom.
At first blush, WandaVision is an easy sell: a television series spun out of the commercially and creatively rich Marvel movie franchise, featuring two of its most popular characters, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), alias Scarlet Witch, and the android Vision (Paul Bettany).
But consider this: it’s a comedy, sort of, it’s set in a surreal world inspired by the history of American sitcoms, from The Brady Bunch to Modern Family. And when last seen in the 2018 film Avengers: Infinity War, Vision was dead.
Wherever we are, one thing is clear: Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more.
The series, written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, is a very original and offbeat blend of sitcom tropes and darker tonal notes, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments in which we begin to suspect that everything about this ‘‘world’’ is not what it seems. Is it Inception ?Or The Truman Show? It could be either. Or both.
The series leans into all eras of American television, Olsen says. It begins with episodes where the production design mirrors early comedies such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. ‘‘[And] we go all the way up to Modern Family,’’ Olsen adds.
‘‘That’s important for many character reasons that is unveiled in the show, and I also believe that when [Marvel lead story producer] Kevin Feige had the opportunity to tell a story, a series story,
The series also, at least initially, breaks the characters out of conventional superhero costume and into TV sitcom wardrobe.
with characters from the cinematic universe, it seemed like that was an opportunity to tell the WandaVision story, where their worlds have collided in many comic books.
‘‘Kevin had the very clever idea of using the American sitcom as the structure, and I think it’s really fun to have that veneer and figure out how to, or when to, poke through it,’’ Olsen adds. ‘‘How do you tell a story that is about these people [who] are both in a place of trying to understand why and where they are?’’
Particularly challenging was the first episode, which is steeped deeply in 1950s TV sitcom and was actually filmed on a traditional sitcom set, with three cameras and no fourth wall.
‘‘The whole thing feels like it soaks into your skin,’’ she says. ‘‘It felt insanely different to go from episode one [to a box]; where you’re in a proscenium, multi-camera sitcom, you don’t have the walls in front of you.
‘‘I felt so grateful when we got to Bewitched and everything was inside a box, because it was confusing to me to have an audience,’’ she says. ‘‘You have an audience and you just have to trust that they can hear you [but] you don’t want to play to them, you want to play to the cameras still. It’s a weird feeling. I felt so much more comfortable in the box.’’
One of the most peculiar aspects of the series is that Olsen herself has American sitcom in her DNA. Her sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, were the child stars of the family sitcom Full House. Feige says that Full House was on one of the show’s creative boards, suggesting it will likely be one of the sitcoms through which the forwardmoving story narrative travels.
WandaVision was also filmed on the Warner Ranch in Los Angeles, a studio lot in the north of the city which has, on its back lot, a number of iconic television homes, including the houses featured in the original Bewitched, The Partridge Family and Eight is Enough.
To get them ready for their altered reality, Olsen says the cast of WandaVision were sent to ‘‘sitcom bootcamp’’, which was moderated by the show’s producer, Matt Shakman.
‘‘I’m not supposed to be talking about it because it’s so dorky, but we did a sitcom school, television school, and specifically for Matt, who was a child actor in sitcoms, he was truly on that lot, first as a child actor, and then a director,’’ Olsen says. ‘‘So I think for him it was really trippy, and for us it was just deliciousness. You totally feel an energy.’’
The series also dramatically altered a dynamic in which Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Bettany’s Vision were part of an ensemble of actors playing a pantheon of superheroes in action-driven films, to one where she and Bettany were alone, centre stage, in a character comedy.
‘‘It’s different, at least on set, and not even within the actual acting, but just on set,’’ Olsen says. ‘‘[Filming the movies] I try and blend into the walls when we do those big group scenes, I don’t want to take up too much space and I am kind of happy letting everyone else be the funny people or whatever. I don’t mind it.
‘‘Also, superhero movies are scary because it’s really hard, it’s technically difficult and it’s not connected to what we do every day,’’ she adds. ‘‘Sometimes you have to lose a part of your embarrassment and be like, I am this powerful thing that has things coming out of her hands. It’s an awkward thing. The more you do it, the more you feel like you can figure it out.’’
In many ways, both subtle and superficial, from the accent she uses in spoken dialogue to her stance, Olsen’s character has changed significantly since she was introduced in the Marvel films.
‘‘These [projects] are all conversations of who she is and who I believe she is, and what I’ve talked about with other directors or writers throughout the last six years,’’ Olsen says.
‘‘I always love being a part of an ensemble piece because I love script analysis [and] I love trying to figure out how your arc can contribute to the larger arc in the storytelling and knowing you’re a piece of the puzzle,’’ she says. ‘‘I think it was really fun to take that piece out and explode it and go as deep back as we want and as forward as we can.’’
When Feige pitched the series concept to her, Olsen says she was simultaneously scared and grateful. ‘‘Especially the way we did it, which was really challenging,’’ she says. ‘‘Doing a different decade means a different voice, means a different posture. There’s all these things, as an actor, that you’ve got to play with. It was really fun.’’
As a character, Scarlet Witch is one of Marvel’s most complex. In the comic book narrative, in particular, she has been singled out for the company’s intelligent handling of mental health issues.
‘‘Her depression and going mad, dealing with alternate realities and her own reality and not knowing what is real and what is not, I just let that be, I can’t play that, that’s not an actable thing to play,’’ Olsen says. ‘‘But what she is actively dealing with in this show is this desperate need to protect her family and create a bubble for them, while there are other moments of her dealing with all of the grief we’ve already seen her go through in the [films].’’
The series also, at least initially, breaks the characters out of conventional superhero costume and into TV sitcom wardrobe. For a character whose stance is deeply informed by her costumed appearance, that also shifted the subtle notes in Olsen’s performance.
‘‘Whichever decade we were in, we were trying to be as authentic and true to that decade, and for that the costumes are informed by societal wants and desires of women’s posturing,’’ she says. ‘‘Then as we get more cynical in American sitcom and get all the way to Modern Family, it’s a completely different type of woman, who is worn out and exhausted by her children and just needs a break.
‘‘We’re playing into the physicality of those prototypes, while also it being supported by Wanda’s own emotional journey throughout the show,’’ Olsen says. ‘‘With the superhero costume, there is something about her boots and her hands. I always think of her energy being down. I don’t think of her as this whimsical thing. I think of her as this earthy, connected person.’’
– Sydney Morning Herald