For a long time, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was pretty much the only major recurring female character in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter, and Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill all popped up every now and again, but after their initial debuts they were more tertiary supporting players than figures integral to the plots of whatever they appeared in.
These days, across the feature film and Disney+ roster we’ve got the likes of Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams and more all set to show up in at least a couple of Marvel’s Phase Four projects. With Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff set to bow out when her solo debut finally arrives in a couple of weeks, Elizabeth Olsen will be looking to cement herself as the MCU’s mot notable female superhero.
She’s well on the way to nailing down that title, with the WandaVision actress surely set to be in the thick of Emmy consideration when the nominations are announced next month. This all comes while she’s taking second billing behind Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and has been linked with countless other movies and TV shows. In a new interview, Johansson lavished praise on Olsen for all she’s brought to the table during her time as part of the MCU.
“It was so great when Lizzy came on because yeah we had Cobie, it was basically the two of us who kind of holding down the fort. And then when Lizzie came on, it was semi-balanced out, because it was very heavy on the testosterone for a very long time. Now, it was like calibrated, finally caught up. I mean, Lizzy is fantastic. She’s so funny, and she has a quirky sense of humor. She’s a total professional. She’s fit in perfectly, and she could just hang and talk and bring it to work.”
What she was doing was so hard, even the physicality of what she was doing was so hard. I’ve worked with her, and I was amazed at what she was creating out of nothing. She created this whole physicality, and her character has such a sensuality to her. She has such a passion. I was amazed by it, and maybe put me to shame. I was like, ‘Wow this is like an amazing thing you’ve created, this mystical beautiful thing that had such strong like feminine energy’. It was much needed.”
It wouldn’t be unfair to label Wanda Maximoff as a little bit of an afterthought during her formative years as part of the shared universe, and it was almost eight years after Elizabeth Olsen signed her first contract with the studio that WandaVision landed on Disney+, but she’s here to stay and set for much bigger things in the future.
