Elizabeth Olsen Says Marvel ‘Didn’t Know What to Do With Me’

Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch has been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a decade now. It hasn’t always been the smoothest ride. Introduced as an ally of Ultron, she then joined the Avengers, fought in the MCU Civil War, fell in love with a robot, lost her mind when said robot croaked, then seemingly got over her trauma only to break really bad in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where her character arguably became a full-blown super-villain.

Olsen hasn’t appeared in the MCU since, and it’s not entirely clear when she’ll be back. Promoting her new movie, the actress said she would return … under the right circumstances.

As she told FM104 (via The Hollywood Reporter), “If there’s a good way to use her I’m always happy to come back, however they can make that make sense.”

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Olsen did acknowledge her character’s wild swings haven’t always worked, noting that Wanda is “a character that I love going back to when there’s a way to use her well” and adding that while she had a strong introduction in Avengers: Age of Ultron, “I think people didn’t know what to do with me for a second there.”

Or maybe a few seconds. Olsen always brought a lot of presence and emotional conflict to Wanda, no matter what Marvel had her do, but she hasn’t exactly been the most consistent Marvel character through the years. WandaVision was seemingly about her character learning to process and move beyond her grief about the death of Paul Bettany’s Vision, yet the very next time audiences saw her, in Multiverse of Madness, she was even more angry, bitter, and violent. She wanted to find her “missing” kids (who were actually just inventions of her magical powers), she was ready to kill anyone and everyone who stood in her way, including Doctor Strange and the rest of his magical allies.

In fact, Wanda’s muddled character development is the subject of one of our recent ScreenCrush videos.

Olsen will next be seen in His Three Daughters (which is excellent, by the way), which premieres on Netflix on September 20.