Elizabeth Olsen Says Returning To Marvel “Has Always Felt Like A Choice” While Providing “Insurance” For Indie Projects

Portraying the Scarlet Witch in the MCU has conjured up other career opportunities for Elizabeth Olsen.

During a conversation at Vulture Festival Saturday, the His Three Daughters actress said that while she doesn’t return to Marvel just for the sake of doing so, she does view her role within the sprawling franchise as bestowing upon her “some feeling of insurance” to take on riskier, indie roles.

“I’d never really had the mentality of ‘one for them, one for me,’” the Ingrid Goes West star explained. “Marvel has been such a consistent thing I’ve been able to return to and has created — what’s the word? — some feeling of insurance in my life that has given me freedom to choose other jobs. So I haven’t felt like, ‘And then I’ll do this to do this.’”

She continued, saying that returning to Marvel for the Disney+ limited series WandaVision or 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has “always felt like a choice.”

“Every time, it’s character-driven,” she explained. “It’s always like, ‘We have this idea, and that’s why we want you to come back.’ It’s not like, ‘Just throw her in something.’”

Additionally, Olsen said she views blockbuster tentpoles and indie films in a symbiotic relationship, as the former helps particularly small theaters “pay the rent” so that more niche films can be screened in theaters, echoing what Paul Thomas Anderson previously said about Spider-Man: No Way Home driving viewers to the ticket office, thus allowing his Licorice Pizza to be shown as well.

“I do think that’s the relationship,” she said.

Earlier this year, Olsen said she was game to return to Wanda Maximoff, should a project arise that would fit the bill: “It’s a character that I love going back to when there’s a way to use her well, and I think I have been lucky that when I started I was used well. I think people didn’t know what to do with me for a second there … if there’s a good way to use her I’m always happy to come back.”

The Emmy nominee was recently seen in the star-studded sci-fi thriller The Assessment, which premiered at TIFF in September and was subsequently scooped up for film distribution outside of Germany by Prime Video.

At Vulture Fest, Olsen also provided an update to her upcoming dark comedy Love Child, in which she is starring opposite Charles Melton. “I’ve never hustled more for a movie that’s having a hard time being made,” Olsen said of the Todd Solondz-helmed pic. “If you guys want to make a big, bold notice that says, ‘Todd Solondz needs money to make a movie,’ that would be great.”