Joss Whedon, Elizabeth Olsen, And Aaron Taylor-Johnson Talk AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

While BuzzFeed was among the folks who visited the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron last year, the media site talked very recently with Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Joss Whedon, who confirmed to them amid post-production that the sequel runs 142 minutes; a full minute shorter than The Avengers. The director also talked in-depth about the newcomers Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and ultimately what stars Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson bring to the characters as well as to the highly-anticipated film. “They don’t like America, and they don’t like the Avengers,” said Whedon of the Twins, who he says volunteer for their superpowered fate essentially because of their hatred of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (especially Iron Man). “We only touch on it briefly — there was more. When the movie was an hour longer, everything got explained a lot. The Avengers are like a world power, and not everybody’s on board with the Avengers coming in and starting fights, even in the name of justice. So you need that dissenting voice, and you need to understand it and sympathize with it.”

About Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and what he brings to Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver, Joss Whedon says, “He is an old-school movie star.” He continued, “Pietro has always been kind of a dick. Aaron is so beautiful — like sculpture beautiful — that you buy him as somebody who’s going to be a little arrogant. He’s not as a person. He’s a dear. He works his ass off. But I knew that he could play that guy.” As for Elizabeth Olsen, who portrays Wanda Maximoff, Whedon says Marvel had suggested he watched her performance in the 2011 drama thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene. “I met her, and was like, Oh yeah,” he said. “This is not a conversation either. I think she’s unforgettable.” The director added that the actress’ demeanor helped to ground the Scarlet Witch’s “theatrical” persona from the comics. “She’s not going to wear a giant tiara and a red leotard,” Whedon reassured.

Joss Whedon then went on to discuss how the Scarlet Witch’s ability to exploit other people’s weaknesses had introduced a new storytelling opportunity for him. “She can make you have a nightmare, is one way of putting it,” he said. “‘Trip balls,’ would be another one. That was something I very much wanted, because it meant we could spend a little time inside the Avengers’ heads — either their past or their impressions of what’s going on, or their fears, or all of the above. And confronting that is very debilitating for the Avengers, but it’s also kind of revelatory. That’s not the movie I made last time. I could never have done that.” Whedon also confirmed to BuzzFeed that the cameos made by Idris Elba (Heimdall) and Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) will be seen through these nightmare sequences. About getting into the Avengers’ minds, Elizabeth Olsen says: “I do get to be a part of strong turning points in the story. If you’re in a group of a lot of men, it’s really easy to make the guys be the turning points. I actually get to charge things, which is nice.”

For Taylor-Johnson, it was doubly strange, since Peters had played one of his best friends in Kick-Ass. “I bumped into him, actually, at Comic-Con [in 2013], when we were doing Godzilla, and they were doing X-Men. I said to him, ‘How was it? How was the shoot?’” Taylor-Johnson remembered with a laugh. “I think the X-Men movies are great. I don’t fear things like that. I feel like without Scarlet Witch, you haven’t really got Quicksilver. We’re not just, like, a little moment in this. We have a story. We have a history. Yeah, OK, he’s fast as fuck, but who cares? It’s just a super power, you know? You’re gonna want to know about Tony Stark in order to love Iron Man. We want to know [Bruce] Banner before we can understand why he’s so destructive as Hulk.”

Both Olsen and Taylor-Johnson were keenly aware of the expectations that come with bringing 50-year-old comic book characters to life on screen amid such a star-powered ensemble. But they dealt with their anxieties in contrasting ways that, coincidentally, remained true to their characters’ divergent temperaments.

Olsen and Joss Whedon on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron Jay Maidment / Marvel
“It feels like the more of a fool you make of yourself, the easier it is for everyone to become your friend faster,” said Olsen matter-of-factly. “Especially being a chick. When you’re a chick, and there are like six guys in the room that you’re working with, you’ve gotta do the guy jokes, which is fun for me.”

Taylor-Johnson, meanwhile, saw things at first through a much more skittish lens. “Stepping onto the set is quite daunting, scary, overwhelming, surreal,” he said. “I remember the first week I was like, I’m doing an eastern European accent, I’ve got a white wig, and it’s sort of not yet fitting right. I’m going to be a rookie on set. And they’re going to put us through initiation tests to fuck with us.”
It turned out to be quite the opposite. While their characters believe they can only rely on each other and look upon the Avengers as, at best, barely tolerable, the actors quickly learned they had joined a team of supportive colleagues.

“Downey actually did a little dinner for us all,” said Taylor-Johnson. “It was both Chrises, Mark, Jeremy, me, Lizzie, a couple nights before we had a big scene. … Everyone looks out for one another. It’s a real family. It’s really nice. You know, someone like that knows the power they have. The fact that they do that — it’s brilliant.”

Whether the pair will become more permanent members of the Avengers family remains unclear. Taylor-Johnson would only say that his status “is sort of up in the air,” and Olsen allowed that her commitment is “this [film], and another.” But in a cinematic universe derived from decades of comic book lore — where characters can disappear and even die only to be resurrected via alternate dimension, life model decoy, or some other fanciful creative invention — one never really knows what might be next. Especially since, in the case of the Maximoff twins, Age of Ultron just scratches the surface. “I have no idea what’s in store,” said Olsen. “Like, not a clue. But I like the character so much. I can’t wait to steal stories from the comics. I think it’d be really fun.”

Marvel Studios presents Avengers: Age of Ultron, the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to the Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision. Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” published in 1963. Get set for an action-packed thrill ride when The Avengers return in Avengers: Age of Ultron May 1, 2015.

Source: BuzzFeed