Elizabeth Olsen Found Out Scarlet Witch Was the Villain in Doctor Strange 2 Only Three Weeks Before Filming

Marvel secrecy is one thing. Telling Elizabeth Olsen she was the main villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness only a few weeks before cameras rolled is... another. Toss in a warp-speed handoff from WandaVision and some very inside-baseball coordination issues, and you start to see how Wanda ended up where she did.

Wait, when did she find out she was the villain?

Speaking at L.A. Comic Con (via Popverse), Olsen said the heel turn was sprung on her right before production ramped up in London.

"I thought that I was in an ensemble cast, and I thought that I was one of the good guys. And then three weeks before I was sent to London, they said, 'You're our lead villain!' And I had no clue. And I finished filming WandaVision, I was like, 'Huh, it would’ve been helpful to know that,' just so I could have pulled the thread through a bit."

She added that once she knew, she tried to shape scenes on the Strange sequel to keep Wanda’s arc coherent.

The crash course, at a glance

• Olsen says Marvel told her she was the lead villain about three weeks before she flew to London for Doctor Strange 2.
• WandaVision wrapped on a Wednesday; she was on a plane to England that Friday to start Strange. Quick turnaround is an understatement.
• Because WandaVision had just finished shooting, the Strange team hadn’t seen it (there weren’t even edits to share yet).
• To keep Wanda’s throughline intact, WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer and Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron compared notes while Olsen tried to carry over what she and the Disney Plus team had just built.

What Wanda actually does in Multiverse of Madness

If you somehow missed the movie: Wanda’s been corrupted by the Darkhold. Grief turns into obsession, and she tears into the multiverse looking for alternate versions of her kids, Billy and Tommy. That puts her directly at odds with Strange, and, yes, it makes her the film’s primary antagonist.

Inside baseball alert

Olsen has said before that she walked straight from WandaVision into Doctor Strange 2 with barely a day to breathe. Her goal was to be the connective tissue for Wanda, especially since the Strange writers room wasn’t fully looped in on everything that had gone down in the series yet. Not the cleanest handoff, but it explains some of the sharp left turns in Wanda’s journey between projects.

Where Scarlet Witch stands now

Since Multiverse of Madness, Wanda hasn’t reappeared on screen. She was last seen bringing down the Darkhold Castle on herself in the third act, presumed dead. Fans keep finding teases and callbacks in Agatha All Along, but officially, Wanda’s future in the MCU is still a question mark.