Elizabeth Olsen's Mom Has Been Calling Wanda Maximoff The Wrong Name For Years
Ah, parents. You may love 'em, but they sometimes don't understand you or what you do, no matter how old you are. This phenomenon isn't just experienced by normal people — it turns out, celebrities are just like us. Even as the star of a massive television event, Elizabeth Olsen has that problem with her mother.
On March 3, Olsen appeared (remotely) on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. As part of the interview, Fallon pulled up some WandaVision social media reactions for the star to see for herself. One tweet referenced the moment in episode 8, "Previously On," in which Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), declares Wanda's true identity. "You're supposed to be a myth," she says during the dramatic reveal. "This is Chaos Magic, Wanda. That makes you the Scarlet Witch."
At that point, Olsen spontaneously related the fact that her own mother had her character's name wrong. "My mom just told me the other day that she's been calling me 'the Red Witch' for the last — she said four years, but I think I've been doing this for like six or seven — and she just learned that I was called the Scarlet Witch last week," Olsen said. "She's like, 'Why didn't you ever correct me?' Because ... I thought you were making a joke, I didn't know that's what you thought my name was!"
Fallon, who jokingly noted that his father still thinks he's Jimmy Kimmel, replied for her: "'Because I love you too much, mom.'" As he then pointed out, "That's what moms do."
The impact of that Scarlet Witch reveal on the MCU
It's an honest mistake, and not unusual for a viewer who's not familiar with Wanda Maximoff's life in the pages of Marvel Comics. While the Scarlet Witch has a rich backstory, Wanda had never actually been referred to on-screen as the Scarlet Witch until WandaVision's big Agatha moment. It had started to seem like viewers might never hear the name, after S.W.O.R.D. Director Hayward (Josh Stamberg) mockingly asked during a briefing earlier in the series if Wanda had a "funny nickname." As Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) replied, "Not a one."
There had also been speculation among fans that Marvel was hesitant to introduce the moniker into the movies because it could be considered antiquated and offensive to practicing Wiccans. As of Infinity War and Endgame, she seemed to be resisting the use of a secret identity — or, as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) would say, a "made-up name."
As it turns out, Marvel was just waiting to spring the news in a more spectacular way, introducing new implications for the MCU as a whole (and the next Doctor Strange movie in particular) as a result of the introduction of Chaos Magic.