Elizabeth Olsen has spent almost a decade playing one of the best MCU characters, and one of the most complex too, as Wanda Maximoff – aka the Scarlet Witch. But there’s at least one part of the MCU movies she has very little love for, according to a new interview.
Olsen told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that she’s not a fan of doing her own stunts, admitting that she has been “freaked out” by some of the more daring feats she has been asked to carry out while making the best superhero movies of the 21st century.
In one case, while making the 2022 Marvel movie Doctor Strange 2, she explained that one specific scene in the new movie was a particular problem for her.
“I’ve definitely recovered from my giddiness. Sometimes I’m just like: ‘Okay, how many more of these do you want? I can do this all day’ kind of thing. But sometimes I get a little freaked out. There is one in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where I had to be dropped from 30 feet up and land.
“They wanted to drop me pretty quickly so that it looked like it had an impact, but I kept landing like Peter Pan, kind of like fencing? I was like: ‘Just use the double. This is so ridiculous — there is a double for a reason. Like, face replace…’ They do it all the time. And they used it. It’s a waste of everyone’s time because a stunt double does it so much better.”
It seems as if Olsen has a rather different vibe to Tom Cruise, who has become the test case for an actor willing to push himself to the limit in search of the most dramatic stunts that the best action movies have to offer.
We don’t blame Olsen for wanting to keep her feet on the ground, though. With the budgets and the filmmaking craft available to the MCU, she should have the chance to step aside for the riskier moments.