An Interview with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen #AvengersEvent

When I found out that I was going to be seeing a sneak peek of Avengers: Age of Ultron, my husband and I decided to watch Captain America: The Winter Solider beforehand. I’m so glad we did and you’ll want to also because if you wait for after the credits, you’ll see a quick scene with Quicksilver {Aaron Taylor-Johnson} and Scarlet Witch {Elizabeth Olsen}. They play a big part in Avengers: Age of Ultron so it’s fun to get a sneak peek of them.

If you’re not familiar with them yet, you will be soon. The twins are Pietro and Wanda Maximoff a.k.a Quicksilver and Scarlet’Witch. They’re from an Eastern European country known as Sokovia that used to be SHIELD post but now Hydra is operating out of it – which we know means trouble! By the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, I was heavily invested in these two characters. I was actually blown away by both of their performances, especially Elizabeth Olsen. I’m excited to share this exclusive interview with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen!

Being cast in a Marvel movie is HUGE, so we asked the two of them what the audition process was like and where they were when they found out they got the roles. Aaron and Elizabeth both starred in Gozilla and had met with Joss Whedon then.

Elizabeth Olsen shared,

We actually didn’t have an audition process. It was we both met with Joss separately. We were about to film Godzilla when we both met. I don’t remember when I met with him but I met with him at some point. You met with him before. We finished filming Godzilla and then we both that summer got a phone call that was like – you guys got the parts and we’re like whoa, okay and that was kind of it. It was really crazy and exciting and Aaron and I were really excited that we got to work with each other again more so because in Godzilla we – if you’d seen it we didn’t really get to work with each other as much.

Aaron chimed in,

Yeah, I mean ‘cause stepping onto the set seemed kind of, you know – it was such a big ensemble. It felt kind of daunting to step on but with Lizzy, we already had that kind of work relationship which made it feel a lot more comfortable.

Aaron shared more about coming on to such an established set,

That was kind of the initial thing of like oh, god everybody knows, this is like their fourth or fifth movie playing these characters. They’re pretty comfortable in that kind of situation and with each other and just understand the whole kind of the mechanics of it ‘cause this movie is such a machine, you know. It just keeps going and going and you’re a small piece to the rubric’s cube and they said that you just have to trust with these guys but you’ve seen the quality of movies they’ve done before so, you know, you can have trust but it’s just you don’t quite understand.

It feels slightly daunting but it sort of very quickly becomes like a very kind of family environment they’ve set up over the years and very comfortable with one another so it feels — I mean you’ve met — you’ll be meeting them all over, relaxed and chill and the way they are here is the way they were on set. It’s just a lot of fun and once you have a laugh with that them, you know it’s kind of cool and you can kind of think about what you’re doing rather than kind of observing like wow, this is pretty cool and overwhelming and surreal. It’s kind of crazy but yeah, it was good.    

With Lizzy, it’s just like our characters are kind of combined so I can kind of rely on her and vice versa I think so.  In those sort of situations it’s just like we, we kind of feel slightly uncomfortable around the Avengers anyway, you know, so early on that we’re kind of, you know, kind of outsiders anyway. So I think it also kind of played within it, you know, what I mean?

What attracted them to the roles of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch?

Elizabeth Olsen says,

Well, I’m a fan of Marvel already and then Scarlet Witch, I didn’t know who she was beforehand and then Joss was telling me about her and we both asked for a lot of research on our characters and they gave us every comic book page that both of our characters have ever been on basically and it was this huge stack. And I think she’s one of the coolest characters in the entire universe of Marvel largely because of the House of M series because she’s the most powerful person in the entire universe, X Men and Avengers combined. I think she’s really nuts too and I just find her to be really…It’s a lot to play with because it’s a lot of psychological stuff to play with instead of just it being physical. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson explains why he was attracted to the role of Quicksilver,

I was really excited about – obviously they have really cool super powers but I really wanted to explore who the character was behind Quicksilver and Pietro was kind of our main goal and Wanda as well to kind of bring it back to the origins and it was based in Sokovia which is someplace in like Eastern Europe. We wanted to embrace that kind of accent and I really wanted to have this same kind of look from the comic books.

I mean Quicksilver, he needed Scarlet Witch because they balance off each other. They’re twins and they’re very much ying and yang in the way their personalities are. He might be quick in speed so he’s kind of quick in temperament I think and in a kind of way hotheaded and impatient and all those things. I wanted to kind of play around with and especially balancing against her kind of more thoughtful, slower, more emotional sort of nurturing side with him…So it kind of gave us a sense of insecurity when they went with each other or kind of vulnerability. All they had was each other. So we kind of played around with everything that we could visually see, what we could read and that was kind of fun. And Marvel really opened to suggestions and ideas and wanted to, you know, do those characters justice so it felt very collaborative very early on.

Elizabeth shared her most emotional scene to shoot,

The one that was the hardest one for me was when Scarlet Witch can see what’s gonna happen if the world — if Ultron has control. A lot of times my character just had to respond to something that is not existent most of the time ‘cause it just like popped into her head and no one else felt it but I did. I have to have some humongous reaction that is coming from nothing and so that always just kind of feels stupid until you really just go for it. So that’s just, that was — there are a couple of moments where I had to be like oh, I just got this new information and that kind of feels funny.

Elizabeth also described how it was to film her scenes since a lot of it is special effects,

Well, you know what it’s actually really fun because a lot of people have stunt doubles and my stuff is like a dance kind of and so I can’t have a stunt double come in and do that. So I was always doing everything where as I even had to do a triple flip back kick situation but I always got to be in control over my characters body movements which was cool and it was fun because there’s no blueprint to how Scarlet Witch moves ‘cause you just see these awesome finger, hand gestures and these circular red things.

And so I would basically — I worked with a movement coach and she and I watched Joss’s version of Scarlet Witch and that was really enjoyable to watch ‘cause he would do the motions and we would interpret it into our own thing but it was really fun. It was really fun to work with the dancer on something like that and it adds a different element to the fighting, a different visual element to the fighting.  And it also felt a little funny because you’re like I’m not making contact with anything, like literally zero contact. So, you just kind of trust that you’re gonna put a robot where my eyes or something, you know. Yeah. There’s a lot of trust that goes in when you have special effects that I wasn’t used to and then after seeing the movie I was like aha, now I’m comfortable.

If you haven’t noticed in the trailers, Quicksilver is a little….fast. Okay, he’s SUPER fast. We asked Aaron if he did any actual running or was it all special effects.

That was pretty much what I did all day long. You know, it was like if in doubt, run. All the special effects is sped up. If Lizzy was in the scene, I’d run up to her. We’d shoot that. We did the dialogue and then we’d have to do a plate afterwards where she’d step out and I’d do the run up and then they would speed that up. It’s like a plate shot. Even though you wouldn’t really know because it goes so quick. But yeah, all the running where there’s a blur it was me behind it.

If you didn’t know, Aaron Taylor-Johnson played the title role in the film Kickass. He was asked what was it like going from playing a vigilante with essentially no superpowers in Kickass to an Avenger with actual superpowers?

It’s a lot more fun having powers for sure.  I mean it’s good fun. They’re both really different characters with different dynamics but it’s a lot of fun having powers and doing these fight sequences. Like just visually anyway, it’s the most exciting for me to see all of your favorite superheroes all fighting together as a team and they all have their different skill sets and they also collide into set with each other. It’s amazing to watch but also it’s amazing to do.

We had the final fight sequence and it was this epic like two or three week long shoot where they found a site that they were gonna bulldozer anyway with these towers and they pretty much did exactly that for them, blew up buildings and smashed up cars and the stunts that are involved…they’re gymnasts and they’re guys — it’s just the most incredible thing to be around and you just live off of that high. It’s gonna be a lot of fun, so, you know.

He’s right – Avengers: Age of Ultron is A LOT of fun! Avengers: Age of Ultron is in theaters on May 1st and you will NOT want to miss it! Stayed tuned over the next few weeks where I’ll be sharing more interviews with the cast of Avengers: Age of Ultron. For now, check out my interview with Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth!

Disclosure: Disney provided an all expenses paid trip to Los Angeles including travel, accommodations and activities. All thoughts and opinions are my own.