Considering Samuel L. Jackson gave the game away last month, it won’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Elizabeth Olsen has finally confirmed that she’s set to portray Wanda Maximoff – a.k.a. Scarlet Witch – in 2015’s hotly-anticipated superhero sequel, with the actress also revealing that she’s looking forward to linking up with her Godzilla co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who’s set to play Wanda’s brother Pietro, better known as Quicksilver.
“We get to play husband and wife, and we get to play twin brother and sister,” Olsen tells MTV. “It’s also fun because even though in Godzilla we play husband and wife, we don’t have a lot of scenes together. I just love him. I love his family. I love his kids. I’m so excited… to actually work with each other. I think it’s going to be fun.”
Of course, if director Joss Whedon decides to take a leaf out of the Ultimates version of the characters for The Avengers sequel, they’ll be blurring the boundaries between husband and wife and brother and sister… And speaking of Whedon, Olsen was full of compliments for the writer-director: “He’s very smart. He’s too smart. He might be too smart. Some people are too smart for their own good, but he’s amazing.”
Meanwhile, Olsen also discussed her research for the role during a chat with ScreenRant: “So far I’m just doing a lot of reading right now on Scarlet Witch and it’s really exciting. But the imagination, like to a child, and like running around in a play yard is what it feels like right now. And that sounds like so much fun, but you still want to approach it with the same kind of like ‘No, this is where she’s from,’ and it’s real. And that’s what’s fun about it. Let them put on the costume or do the special whatever-they-need-to-do to make it look special, but I’ll just do my part – it just has more extreme things to it. [Laughs] I’m like really excited about Scarlet Witch. The most recent thing I learned – I don’t even know if it has anything [to do with the film], it’s just fun to read these comics – it’s just so fun! Like, she’s a ‘nexus,’ like she’s the only human being from this universe who can communicate with paranormal things and the past and the future and other universes; like to me that’s pretty incredible! [Laughs] Like just thinking about that is amazing! To touch things and know where they’ve been, that’s crazy!”
The Avengers: Age of Ultron is set for release on May 1st, 2015, with Olsen, Taylor-Johnson and Jackson joined in the cast by Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and James Spader (Ultron).
Originally published November 11, 2013. Updated April 15, 2018.
