The cast and creative team behind WANDAVISION gathered for a virtual press conference: Elizabeth Olsen (“Wanda Maximoff”), Paul Bettany (“Vision”), Teyonah Parris (“Monica Rambeau”), Kathryn Hahn (“Agnes”), Matt Shakman (Director), Jac Schaeffer (Head Writer), Kevin Feige (Producer, Marvel Studios President)
Read some highlights below!

The first two episodes of WANDAVISION will premiere on Friday Jan. 15, exclusively on Disney+.

Matt Shakman on him and the cast watching many sitcoms for research:

“We watched a ton of old television episodes and talked about how comedy changes, because it really does. The approach to comedy in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s is really different. And as Lizzie said, doing it in front of this live studio audience, which is this quasi-theater-TV thing, it really adds to it. Lucille Ball, ‘I Love Lucy,’ Dick Van Dyke – you can feel the energy of that theatrical performance, working with the audience. And then when you get into ’60s shows like “Bewitched” or “I Dream of Jeannie,” it is a fourth wall and all of a sudden, it’s more like doing a movie these days and the laugh track is canned and brought in, which changes the energy, the approach, the style, everything.
When something shifted from, say, a Dick Van Dyke or an I Love Lucy style into something that was outside of that, it was going into kind of The Twilight Zone. You know, we were thinking about what were the purity added shows that had addressed, you know the odd and the strange, and how could we embrace that so that’s a little bit about how we approached the shooting of it certainly and we’ll look at it.”

Elizabeth Olsen on performing in front of a live studio audience:

“It was so nerve-wracking, and there was a lot of adrenaline. There were a lot of quick changes, and it totally confused my brain. The idea of not playing for an audience, but feeding off an audience, and having a camera…. I was really grateful when we added the fourth wall for the second episode.”

Olsen on translating Wanda’s powers for the sitcom world:

“I can’t wiggle my nose. We had to figure out something else that was period-appropriate,” noting a flick of her finger was their translation to adapting it to the sitcom environment. To watch our Special Effects team that usually blows things up, set things on fire, create wind, create smoke…these guys became like puppeteers of things floating in the sky, dealing with magnets in different ways to make them spin. It was so incredible to watch our Special Effects team adapt to the era-specific ways of creating these practical effects.”

Paul Bettany on playing Vision under very particular circumstances:

“Initially, I was, ‘wow this feels so different as I read the script,’ and ‘how do I keep him the same?’ but then I realized he’s always been becoming something else. You know, he’s J.A.R.V.I.S., he’s part Ultron, he’s part Tony Stark. He’s omnipotent, but he’s also this sort of naïve ingenue. And then I realized, well, I’ll just throw in a little bit of Dick Van Dyke in there, Bryan Cranston, a little bit of Hugh Laurie. As long as he remains what I think Vision is—decent and honorable and exists for Wanda—then you’re safe.”

Kathryn Hahn on her character Agnes, the nosy neighbor next-door:

“In all those classic sitcoms, there’s always that person that busts through the doors and sits on the couch but you never get to know anything about them. In that classic way, I was able to walk into as Agnes with all those beautiful tropes set up behind me to just to just build on.”

Kevin Feige on how the series expands the MCU:

“I hope it says get ready for the new and the different. I hope all of our movies have said that but certainly with the Disney Plus opportunities it has allowed us to expand creatively, what we do. The original plan was ‘Falcon Winter Soldier’ was going to debut last year, followed very soon behind with ‘WandaVision.’ So creatively it didn’t reshuffle. Part of having a long-lead plan is having the ability and the ideas of how to shuffle, should the need arrive. I’m not saying we were prepped for a global pandemic, we were not… The unexpected has often served Marvel Studios well. And it has served us well in this case, because this show being our first one I love how bold it is, I love how different it is. And I love as I said before, it is something you can only see on a Disney Plus. We have things that you will only be able to see initially in theaters. We have things that could end and are made for that. And this is very much made to be seen week after week on television, which is very different for us.”

Blends the style of classic sitcoms with the MCU in which Wanda Maximoff and Vision -two super-powered beings living their ideal suburban lives-begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.