How Evan Peters Really Reacted To Joining The Marvel Universe - Exclusive
One of the biggest surprises of WandaVision was the so-called "recasting" of Wanda Maximoff's (Elizabeth Olsen) twin brother Pietro — from Aaron Taylor-Johnson in past Marvel movies to Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in the X-Men films. Seeing Peters appear as Pietro at the end of episode 5, knocking on Wanda and Vision's (Paul Bettany) door and then asking his twin sister for a hug, was a shock in the moment, aided by the meta-textual layer of the Quicksilver from Fox's X-Men franchise playing the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the end, however, Pietro's appearance didn't amount to more than a jaw-dropper within the series' context. But even though Pietro turned out to be a misdirection, he certainly eft an impact. Looper spoke with WandaVision creator-slash-head-writer Jac Schaeffer and producer Mary Livanos, both of whom gave insight into Peters' casting, how he felt about joining WandaVision, and his time on set.
Evan Peters is "the nicest, coolest guy"
Speaking about why Pietro was a part of WandaVision in the first place, Livanos explained, "We knew that we really wanted to bring back Quicksilver in one way or another. [With the story] that we were crafting in Agatha's villain plot [and] how we were crafting that, we really wanted to find a way to mess with Wanda emotionally and also trick the audience as well. So the notion that Wanda, at this point in the series [...] has lost control of her powers and brought back her brother wrong was really cool and disturbing to us."
She continued, detailing that Pietro looked different in WandaVision because Wanda was still grappling with his death, and the grief literally clouded her memory. "It's actually a fact that when people lose loved ones, one of the sad things that starts to happen is your memory recall becomes fuzzy. And so you forget exactly what they look like. That notion [really] hat at the core of Wanda's grief track for us, and so the idea that her power is on the fritz and [she] brought him back wrong, we found really intriguing," said Livanos.
For the WandVision team, Peters was the "natural go-to casting choice with that conceit," according to the producer. "It was something that we pursued for a long time and that was tricky, but we were able to pull it off," Livanos told Looper. "Evan was so gracious to come work with us and pull off this cool, wacky character that we had imagined. So I'm grateful to him, for sure.
How did Peters react to finally being part of the MCU? With enthusiasm and his signature professionalism.
"He's just the nicest, coolest guy. He just showed up to work excited to do whatever we had to do that day — [playing] the sort of older, wacky brother type who gets the kids and the family into trouble," said Livanos. "It was cool to see him play. And the notion that he turns out to be this route that Agatha [Harkness, the powerful witch played by Kathryn Hahn] has been referring to throughout the entire series was zany in a way, but I think Evan appreciated it."
Schaeffer echoed these sentiments, telling Looper that "he's so great on set." The series' creator also revealed that Peters is responsible for some memorable ad libs in WandaVision. Both "Who's the popsicle?" and "You're a fan of Steven Segal?" were improvised lines. Livanos confirmed this, and started laughing when she spoke about it: "Plus the material, he was drinking a milkshake out of a blender! Really great improv-er for sure."
Fans can watch (and re-watch) all of Evan Peters' best moments in WandaVision on Disney+.