All season long, we've been caught in the spell being cast by Disney+'s WandaVision, and a major factor in that was watching how director Matt Shakman blended the well-established world of the MCU with a mind-bending trip through the history of American family sitcoms — all in service, as we've come to discover, to a very human and compelling story about one woman's grief.
Shakman is a veteran TV director with credits including It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Good Wife — he also literally grew up on television as a child actor best known for the ABC sitcom Just the Ten of Us. Because this is a Marvel project, there is of course a limit to how much he could say about making this season, especially since there's one episode left and some wild twists still to come. However, in the below interview, we were able to talk about a variety of topics, from his previous connections to many of the key players on screen and behind the scenes, using practical effects, the importance of grief to the story being told, and where he stands on the question of a second season.
[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for WandaVision, Season 1, Episode 8, "Previously On."]
So I've had the pleasure of speaking to a number of other people who have worked on this show over the course of the season, and one interesting unifying factor I've found is that most of them seem to have known you before the show, and you brought them in to some degree. Was that something you did consciously, or was it just the way things worked out, that these were the right people to come on board?
MATT SHAKMAN: It's always a pleasure to work with people that I know and that I've worked with before because you have that shorthand. But it's also really fun to meet new talented people and to expand that universe of people that you can work with. In this particular case, I made a few calls, like to Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to write the songs, and Mark Worthington, a production designer I've worked with before and who I know to be a genius.
But in the case of Teyonah Parris, we worked together on Mad Men years ago, but that core path to Monica Rambeau really didn't have anything to do with that experience. Though I loved seeing her again — she's an extraordinary actress and it was super fun to be reconnected.
When I spoke with her, she wasn't sure if the Mad Men connection had helped her at all. But now we've got that confirmed, which is great.
SHAKMAN: She needed no help. She is amazing.
When it came to Episode 8, given the formats you were already playing with, did you always have the sense that the idea of, essentially, a clip show would be fun to explore?
SHAKMAN: Definitely. I mean, WandaVision has been a meta exploration from the beginning, and so the idea of calling it "Previously On" reflects it the way it was constructed. And that line of Agatha's, which changed so many times but finally became "Now it's time for some real reruns," sets that up in a great way. But we wanted to go back and, aside from the madness of it, really spend time with Wanda in all of these key moments, these moments where we can really appreciate the love she had for her parents and how they all bonded as a family. And then what that loss felt like and the connection to Vision. And obviously what it felt like when she had to realize that he was completely gone in S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters.
Of all the styles and all the genres you got to play with over the course of the season, what was the most comfortable for you and what was the least comfortable?
SHAKMAN: Certainly the live studio audience was the most comfortable, even though it was strange for Marvel. I'm a theater director and I also grew up on sitcoms. So I measured out my life as a child in rehearsal days and tape days and performance days, it was a lot of fun to do.
And then the most uncomfortable probably would have been recreating the '60s or '70s, where the tone and style and what comedy was is so specific. The '70s was the biggest challenge just because it's such a self-parodying generation. The '80s too, to some degree. Big hair and shoulder pads, what were we all thinking? And so we really didn't want it to feel like parody. We didn't want it to feel like a spoof. Because as you see now, this is all the world that Wanda has created and Wanda is awfully good at creating realities. And we wanted to make sure that since Wanda made it, it had to be really, really good.
Over the course of the season, do you feel you were able to do as much as you wanted to with practical effects versus CGI? Is there stuff you're particularly proud you got to do?
SHAKMAN: Absolutely. I think if there were things that we couldn't do with practical effects, we shouldn't be doing them. That was the general rule, right? We wanted to be able to copy the style of these shows and they're amazing. And what the craftspeople behind Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie could do with wires is phenomenal. So if they couldn't do it, then we shouldn't be doing it either. Except, of course, when something is meant to be in the Marvel language, like phasing through Mr. Hart's throat to pull out that strawberry. That's meant to break the rules of what magic looks like in that episode.
Excellent. Meanwhile, you've had this big surprise to draw out over the course of the season, which is the reveal of Agatha. What went into calibrating just the right amount of clues to drop in that respect?
SHAKMAN: There's no scientific formula. So we certainly tried to drop a few, and when you have an amazing actor like Kathryn Hahn popping in as the nosy neighbor, I think most people's antenna goes up. And if you're a comic fan, maybe you notice her cameo and maybe you start to wonder how it might connect to the comic books. But for those who maybe aren't as steeped in comic book lore, we were hoping that it would be a legitimate sort of surprise, and for those who might be just a little bit ahead of it, we hope that the reveal was so much fun anyway that even if you saw it coming a little bit, you still thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
Yeah, I told my mom a couple of weeks ago that somebody had taken a screenshot of all the dossiers that S.W.O.R.D. had up and Kathryn Hahn's character wasn't there, and she got really excited.
SHAKMAN: Yes, that is a piece of evidence that we put there. Yes, for sure.
Something that Kevin Feige has talked about already is the possibility of a second season of the show — he didn't say yes or no to the possibility. Season 1 of course goes into Doctor Strange 2, of course, but from your perspective, if there were a WandaVision Season 2, is that something you'd be excited about? Would you want to participate?
SHAKMAN: I love working at Marvel. It's the best place in the world. They're so great with filmmakers and I've had such a great journey with this show. We have no plans for WandaVision Season 2 at all — that could change, of course. It all depends on what's the story. We were very focused on telling this story over nine episodes and hopefully coming to a conclusion that feels satisfying and also surprising.
In this latest episode, there's this gut-punch of a line from Vision about grief. Have you been able to see the reaction that people have had to that line over the last few days?
SHAKMAN: Yes, I have noticed. It doesn't surprise me, I'm surprised in general by the positive response to the show, which is great and humbling, but that line really is sort of the center point of the show — that exchange, I should say, because I think it's both lines. I think it's both his response, but also her line before it, about what loss feels like. It really is what the show is about. And I'm glad to be able to pull back the curtain in Episode 8 so that people realize, when they watch Episodes 1, 2, and 3, that this idea — this meditation on how you come back from loss — is really what the show is all about. It's about love.
So, going into making the finale — what was the most important thing for you? What were the notes you were really hoping to hit?
SHAKMAN: Well, Episode 8 really opens up the major thematic journey for Wanda, which is the stages of grief. That's what the whole show has been about, how you come to terms with loss. So that's been the overarching theme of the show, the spine of the show. And that's ultimately what we want to make sure that we're resolving at the end. But we also want it to be surprising. We want it to be a lot of fun. We've introduced a new character at the end of 8 in White Vision — so now you have two Visions on the board. The question of "who is the real Vision?" will play out. So there's a lot to come.
New episodes of WandaVision stream Fridays on Disney+.