How Dick Van Dyke helped ‘WandaVision’ find its magic – Contenders TV – Deadline

Launch of the first Disney + television series, all nine episodes WandaVision combined an entirely original premise that felt somehow familiar with its blatant homage to the classic sitcoms the witch Wanda conjured up to hide her grief at losing her soul mate, Vision, with a brutal death we’ve all seen in Avengers: Infinity War.

Asking Wanda to hide her grief by creating a sitcom-infused world that comforted her as a child was an idea developed by Marvel boss Kevin Feige, and turned into an achievable concept by series creator, EP and writer Jac Schaeffer. At the Deadline’s Contenders awards season event: The Nominees, Schaeffer, director / EP Matt Shakman and series stars Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Kathryn Hahn – all Emmy nominees – discussed the unusual series and how she was helped to find her inner sitcom’s Laughter Track is courtesy of Dick Van Dyke, whose eponymous show was a pioneering effort paid tribute in the early episodes.

“I asked him for the secret sauce, what made this show work so well, and he said if it couldn’t happen in real life, it couldn’t happen on the show,” Shakman said. “Carl Reiner would get everyone around the table on the first day of rehearsal every week and say, so what happened this weekend?” He would take everything apart and put it on the show. It left room for tripping over beanbags and being silly but emotionally engaged. Everyone believed in this relationship between Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke as a couple. This is also what we needed.

Shakman and Schaeffer were so won over by his other suggestion that they shot the first episode in front of a live audience. “They did it in front of a live studio audience, but they didn’t come back like we do today in modern sitcoms… back then, they did it like a play,” he said. Shakman said. “They repeated it. Curtain up, and the laughter you hear was the laughter of the audience. And they were made. There was a real sensation of lightning in a bottle. We did this for our first show. You hold hands and jump off a cliff.

Olsen, Hahn and Bettany said it was difficult to start filming the series in front of a live audience. While Bettany said that after believing he was fired after his character from Vision was killed in Avengers: Infinity War, he was only too happy to participate in Feige’s initial idea and its execution by Schaeffer. But he drew the line with the live audience.

“When Matt said we were going to do it in front of a live audience, I thought, no it’s not,” Bettany said. “But he was right. It gave us a quality of project that is very similar to that era, which I don’t think I was smart enough to achieve, to be someone who works for an audience.

As for the prospect of removing his character from Vision and ending a run in the Marvel superhero movies that began when he voiced Jarvis in Iron Man, Bettany said WandaVision was a wonderful way to end her job with Olsen.

“It was a beautiful highlight for all of these things that Lizzie and I have done together,” he said. “We really found a way for ourselves, and the tone was different from those movies. But you never know with Marvel, whether you’re done or not. So I don’t want to call it the end yet. It was one of the most creative, joyful and free experiences of my life putting on this show. To see him kissed by an audience like he was was so wonderful. “

Check back on Monday for the panel video.