‘Doctor Strange 2’ cast had a huge hand in shaping their characters

Other than dueling Benedicts Cumberbatch and Wong, alongside Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, next week’s hotly-anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness isn’t packed to the rafters with recurring franchise favorites.

Even the confirmed cameos are technically newcomers, with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and Hayley Atwell’s Captain Carter both variants audiences have never met before, while Xochitl Gomez’s America Chavez will be making her debut. Returning stars Rachel McAdams, Chiwitel Ejiofor, and Michael Stuhlbarg haven’t been seen outside of the first Doctor Strange, but it turns out that each of them may have had a significant hand in shaping the direction of their respective characters.

Speaking at the movie’s press conference, screenwriter and MCU favorite Michael Waldron explained that the simplest way to bring the most out Doctor Strange 2‘s biggest players was to get them involved.

“I had the great benefit of kind of inheriting a bulk of these characters. And so I think that was what certainly centered me creatively. You know: Stephen, Wanda, Wong. Obviously America is a new character that Xochitl was originating.

But in a lot of ways, I was just a steward of these characters on the page and so there was a lot of opportunity to collaborate with these tremendous actors who know them better than I could. And as the script evolved, which it very much was all the time, you’re really refining it and it’s leaning on the people who have been doing it even longer than we have in this individual chapter. It’s a real team effort putting this story together.”

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness finally comes to theaters in a matter of days, and regardless of how well-written everyone is on the page, fans are destined to lose their minds when they get to see the end product for themselves.