Scarlet Witch Actress Elizabeth Olsen Was Inspired By 'Star Wars'
Star Wars has been an inspiration for countless fans since the original premiered in 1977. For those who have been fans since childhood, the saga is so much more than just a series of films set in a galaxy far, far away.
Elizabeth Olsen, best known for her portrayal of Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has also made known that she has not only been a lifelong fan of Star Wars, but that it was a major inspiration for her to go from independent film to blockbusters.
In an interview with Collider, Olsen explained just how she ended up playing everyone’s favorite reality-bending superhero:
“It was actually a funny decision I had put out in the world. I talked to my agent, my manager who are like my other mothers. I just love them so much. And I told them, ‘I want to be considered for the projects that I grew up …’ - like, as a kid, looking at Star Wars and I was obsessed with Star Wars. You couldn’t peel me away from Star Wars as a child. And so I was trying to figure out, how do I start putting that out there because I feel like all I’m getting are these really disturbed women in independent films. [Laughs] [Now] it’s just a disturbed woman in a big franchise! They said take meetings with the people who run these companies and so I literally did. I met with Kevin [Feige] and a couple other people that were working there at the time. And then I met with the people who were running Legendary at the time. And there were a few others in different places.”
Prior to joining the MCU, Olsen’s first starring role was in the 2011 independent film Martha Marcy May Marlene, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. In the film, she played a young woman trying to re-join her family after fleeing an abusive cult, however she is having issues separating dream from reality.
She also starred in 2011’s Silent House, a horror movie made to look like it was shot in one take. Without giving away the twist at the end of a nearly decade-old movie, it deals with disturbing themes including emotional trauma and repressed memories.
It is understandable that after portraying two protagonists with complex emotional issues, Olsen would want to try her hand at something new. While her first major blockbuster was the 2014 American reboot of Godzilla (playing the wife to her future Marvel co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson), she would gain true super-stardom in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Marvel’s debut Disney+ series, WandaVision, has Olsen reprising her role as Wanda Maximoff in a sitcom-like life alongside her love interest from the Avengers movies, the android Vision. Ironically, the show now has her character having issues differentiating fiction from reality, as not all is as it seems for the odd couple.
Several others involved in the MCU have mentioned how much Star Wars has influenced them. Kevin Feige, overseer of the entire MCU is a self-proclaimed huge fan and is now set to produce a Star Wars film of his own, with Loki executive producer Michael Waldron attached to write the script. Paul Bettany, who plays Vision, made the jump to Star Wars as the villain Dryden Vos in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Would it be possible for Olsen to eventually do the same and enter the universe she loved so much growing up? If she does, while seeing her wield a lightsaber could be really cool (and perhaps fulfill some childhood dreams of her own), seeing her as someone as far removed from Scarlet Witch as possible has a lot of potential.
What do you think? Would you want to see Elizabeth Olsen in a Star Wars movie?
Source(s): Collider