All language subtitles for Marvel Studios’ Assembled The Making of Agatha All Along

I got mugged.

She took every little bit of power I

had and left me with household appliances.

I gotta get back on top.

How far have you fallen, witch killer?

I'm gonna walk the road.

The road is a death wish.

It's a dead end.

The road is a myth.

It's a con.

A cult.

Yeah.

But what if it isn't?

When Catherine Han first came into Marvel Studios,

it was actually for a general meeting.

She was an actor that we very much

wanted to work with, and we wanted to

see what could be a good fit.

Okie dokie, neighbor!

Agatha was a fairly obscure character from the

comics, but Catherine made her all her own.

You didn't think you were the only magical

girl in town, did you?

There was literally no discussion of it continuing

past WandaVision.

Like, you always know that there's a possibility,

I think, in the Marvel world, but there

was certainly no expectation that this centuries-old

witch, buried deep within the archives of the

Marvel comics, was gonna be making a comeback

after WandaVision.

When we cast Catherine Han, we had high

hopes that she would bring so much to

the role, but I think it didn't really

hit until Agatha all along dropped and the

song became a sensation.

And I killed Sparky, too.

All of a sudden my face was like

a meme, and my kids had to tell

me what the hell a meme was, and

then I was like a gif.

The whole thing was like so out of

body.

It was so much bigger than we anticipated.

And then when I came back to Marvel

and started developing some ideas for different shows,

every show concept I had had an Agatha

piece to it.

You know, no matter what character or what

world, there was always, you know...

And then in episode 104, Agatha comes in,

and Kevin finally said, should we be doing

a show based on Agatha?

And then it became, why aren't we doing

a show based on Agatha?

I'm exceptional.

Louis Pizzuto from Marvel said, can we hop

on the phone?

You know, I knew that it was something

Marvel, but maybe a cameo, or I had

no idea.

And then he said, how about your own

series?

And I just about crapped my pants, pardon

my French.

I can't believe any of this is happening.

The pilot is major WandaVision vibes, because we

are starting inside of a TV genre.

The chief calls and tells me hibernation's over.

We got a case only you can solve.

When we were doing WandaVision, it was never

a parody.

We just dropped into each of those styles,

and we wanted to do that again, but

we wanted to be through Agatha's lens.

Well, who better to solve the mystery than

one of Westview's very own?

We had so much fun making the Agnes

of Westview, our little crime show within the

show.

This is our morgue set, which is the

location of the climax of our pilot episode.

Detective Agnes O'Connor has been trying to

figure out the identity of a Jane Doe

in a murder case.

And all of the clues and plot points,

they lead her to this location, where she

sees the body and figures out that it's

Wanda Maximoff.

That witch is gone, leaving you trapped in

her distorted spell.

But you don't have to stay there, do

you?

One of the things that I was so

excited to hear was that this show is

going to try to rely more on the

practical magic.

Start it here, and then if you can

turn your body as you're doing it, we

cut when it's over your face.

In executing these things practically, there's an enduring

effect that it has on the storytelling.

Is it hot?

Yes, claw your way out.

Not only do we get to do fantasy,

and we get to do contemporary, and we

get to do comedy, but we also get

to do true period garments.

It's going to be an adventure.

Everybody ready?

Because who knows what's going to come out?

We really thought it was important to tell

the entire story of the periods that she

had done previously in WandaVision.

And so I fought very hard to make

sure that we could actually physically do it

on the day.

So we really rehearsed it kind of like,

you know, musical theater costume changes.

And we had to plan out very specifically

how we would underdress one costume and put

the sweater over the top of this, and

then the camera would cut up this way

so that we didn't have to do the

pants for that one.

And it was choreographed within an inch of

its life.

Here we have the wardrobe!

Thank you so much!

I adore you all so much!

It's my belief about Agatha that her true

self, like her best self, is mentor.

That she's, in fact, a frustrated mentor.

And so what we wanted for this show

was an opportunity to pair her with someone.

I mean, she's still a nasty mentor and

a mean mentor, but she is a teacher.

She really, really is.

Does this look centered?

Let me see.

Maybe if I just put it a little

more to the...

The Agatha team relationship is so complicated and

there's so many layers to it.

And so having Agatha as like a motherly

figure to teach him how to be a

witch is really quite lovely.

And Catherine's just so easy to work with,

and I think we've got great chemistry.

I feel really optimistic about this.

Aww, that's sweet!

We had a chemistry read.

We walked in and we both had the

same black Vans on that day, which I

thought was a good omen, our black shoes.

And I had these same pair of Vans

on that I then didn't take off for

a month after that.

Until I found out if I got the

part or not.

I was like, this is a good luck

charm.

I cannot take these shoes off.

I want to work with you, Detective Agatha.

I'm a rule follower, a team player.

Some might say codependent.

There's something so incredibly deep about him as

a performer and as a person.

What I loved about this script is that

it shows different types of superheroes.

Like, Billy is openly gay.

He's not like the norm of teenagers.

And I just really loved showing the differences

within the Marvel Universe that aren't just the

muscly six-foot superhero.

So you broke the rules.

Big deal.

That's what makes you special.

You know, in any MCU property, you have

to have a villain or some kind of

counterpoint.

And so we talked at length about who

would be a foe for Agatha.

And so this notion of Death herself being

the adversary for Agatha felt so right.

I've missed you.

I hate you.

We were just so delighted that Catherine and

Aubrey know each other outside of the Marvel

space.

And so they had an instant chemistry.

It just felt serendipitous.

Fate has her way with us once again.

Catherine called me and told me about the

character.

It just seemed so fun because I essentially

get to play multiple characters in one, which

is kind of my favorite.

I get to play a cop, like an

FBI agent, Agent Rio.

And then I get to play the Green

Witch.

And then my final form as Lady Death.

If you're going to have somebody who can

go toe-to-toe with Catherine Han, you

can't really do better than Aubrey Plaza.

I just feel so in tune with her.

We really lucked out.

Admit it.

You prefer me.

Horizontal?

In a grave?

Let me get my purple back, and then

come find me.

When Agatha gets out from under Wanda's spell,

she has zero power.

For the first time in a long time,

you're vulnerable.

She realizes the shortcut to getting her power

back is to walk the Witch's Road, where

a powered-down witch can travel it to

power herself back up.

The catch is, in order to walk the

road, you have to form a coven.

And this was all born of the idea

of what would be the hardest thing for

Agatha Harkness to do, and it would be

forming a coven.

Wherever you are, a coven there shall be.

That's beautiful.

No, it's definitely not.

Well, me, Catherine, am really blessed by this

coven.

It's a real delightful group.

What witch in her right mind would join

Agatha Harkness's coven?

Not looking for right-minded witches, as it

happens.

When I talked to Jack on the phone,

and she told me that it was a

Sicilian witch whose power was divination, and her

trial was tarot.

First of all, I am a Sicilian.

I do think I am a witch.

And in American Horror Story, I was this

bathhouse singer that started to do tarot.

I thought, wait a minute, I seem to

be following some sort of pattern.

So it was divine that I should continue

on this path.

I was a fan of WandaVision when it

came out, and I didn't realize how many

witches were already in the Marvel Universe.

So once I knew that this show was

going to be a thing, and that there

was a possibility of being a part of

it, I was over the moon.

You're bound.

And you need a chemical peel.

This is never going to work.

As soon as I got the audition sites,

I was like, Catherine Hahn?

WandaVision?

Yes!

You know, who doesn't want to be a

witch?

I mean, that's like a childhood dream.

What if you could finally answer the question

that has haunted you for most of your

life?

It feels like, you know, art imitating life.

It feels like everyone came to this show

wanting to get something out of it, and

I think we have.

If you want to unbind, and you want

to reverse your fortune, and you want to

find out what happened to Mommy, and you...

Wait, where's Mrs. Hart?

You know, I was in a small town

in WandaVision, and I thought, well, they'll be

moving on from this small town.

Oh, I haven't been to a party since

Mr. Davis passed away.

So are you in or are you out,

Hart?

I was so flattered.

So I would have said yes to anything

at that point, you know, the flattery alone.

All right, gang's all here.

Let's hit the road.

Our costume designer, Daniel Salone, who we worked

with on WandaVision, has created some incredibly iconic

looks.

The witches will all have what we call

their home looks.

They're their road looks.

For any project that I've ever done, I

always feel like the costume is such an

enormous jumping-off point.

You're informed by the choices that the costume

designer has made, that the director has made

with the costume designer, so you're kind of

on the same page then all of a

sudden.

And with Marvel, which was new for me,

it was so much more collaborative than I

think I had thought it was going to

be.

I love those!

This jacket is the first garment that we

designed, and I had a conversation with Catherine

very early on about her character, and we

thought she is a covenless witch, and so

we thought of her as a lone crow.

And so we really leaned into that.

You know, we created this very unique lapel

that sort of is like the way that

feathers lay together.

In the belt, there's little hints at a

crow's feet.

These little detail pin tucks here, and also

in the back of the garment, there are

many, many pleats, so we have actually a

tail for the crow that is part of

the pleating, but it blends in from afar.

This coat in particular I'm obsessed with because

the lining is all runes.

We created this graphic of a murmuration of

birds or crows that all are sort of

swirling up here, and they dive down, and

as they dive down, the birds start to

transform into magic runes that we invented.

It's like bananas, so yeah.

It also feels like a very sacred object.

The costume people are amazing, and it's very

funny that Jennifer came to the road dressed

like this.

She was like, all right, ready to go

trek it in the road in my best

silky pink.

But the dress itself has so many little

details.

There's mushrooms on here.

There's hands that are bound by rope because

I myself am bound.

There's lavender, and there's a mixing bowl, and

there's stars and sort of elements of the

celestial bodies that she's related to, and then

we printed that in a gold foil onto

the dress.

We were looking up the history of pink,

and pink used to be a very manly

color, so even though Jen has her prissy

moments, she also is very, very strong and

very sure of herself, so I feel like

this outfit kind of embodies that.

You look amazing.

I know.

Alice's look was a bit of a mystery

to me at first.

She is so protected, and she's covering for

a lot of pain, and so we wanted

to give her an armor and have her

also have a bit of like a cyberpunk

feeling about her.

So we designed this jacket that has sort

of all kinds of gack and metal quality

to it, and we even created this image

that's on the back that is based on,

I think it's like a 7th century samurai

poem that says, Barnes burnt down, now I

can see the moon.

There was all this fire element in her

life.

Her mother died in a hotel fire, and

so the greatest pain of her life is

actually painted on her back.

There's also this evil eye cutout that she

has in her costume and all of these

amulets that is the one thing that she's

kind of taken from her mom.

There's a stone that she wears that was

her mother's, and I think in her one

little nod to, just in case my mom

is right about all this, she's kept all

these amulets on her.

If you're not trying to find her out

here, why did you come with us?

She said the road would save me.

Daniel's done so much research, it's unbelievable.

I'm in a traditional Sicilian shirt and palazzo

pants and jacket from the 16th century.

The detail in my coat, if you go

up close and you see all of the

symbols, it's stunning.

We wanted this to be a garment that

felt like it was passed down to her

through many generations, and we also wanted to

have this shawl collar that would be a

little bit of a showcase for some of

these embroidered vignettes that we created.

We created her child self sort of looking

out at the horizon, an empty proscenium because

Patti LuPone, come on.

And we've got longevity and the timelessness of

a never-ending life.

She is over 450 years old.

How dare you!

And then this concept of women passing wisdom

and knowledge to each other through water.

There was so much about her character where

she passes through time and space, and she

is experiencing her life in these nonlinear vignette

moments.

And so the eye is a central piece,

and I love that it's always looking behind

her because she's looking forward and seeing behind.

How long has it been?

Centuries.

When we embarked on developing this show, there

were priorities out of the gate, like hot

ticket items.

We needed to have wardrobe moments.

We needed to have big performance con moments

for Agatha.

And music.

There needed to be music.

We needed to bring the Lopez's back.

She told us it's going to be this

ballad, and it's one of those songs that

has lived forever.

It starts hundreds of years ago.

No one knows how it got made, but

like all folk songs that are that old,

it's almost like a legend.

There's different versions of it.

Everyone has their own version, and it tells

a different story, and people argue about what

it means.

Like any song, and actually like American music

itself, it started maybe out of the ritualistic,

spiritual world of psalms and hymns, and then

it sort of evolved in New Orleans to

the jazz and blues, and then that evolved

into rock & roll, and then that evolved

into pop versions, and the Ballad of the

Witch's Road takes that same journey.

I really like making these puzzle box shows

where you sort of have to come at

it from all these different angles, and they

are so up for that.

They love that challenge.

They love having to make sure that the

lyrics fit all the different pieces of the

story and that all the different iterations make

sense, and there's a through line, but they're

all distinct.

It's such an enormous challenge, and they are

such partners in that endeavor.

Your singing doesn't have to be perfect, but

it has to match rhythm.

So Bobby's down there working on boosting the

click so that you guys can at least

all feel the rhythm.

My puzzle brain loves being told by a

writer that you need to put these 7

secrets inside the song.

It needs to be able to be sung

as a love ballad or as a sacred

chant.

Give me those assignments, and let me just

take elements from what you've given me, Wiccan

sacred texts, old hymns, let me mix it

all together, and it's really fun.

It's like the ultimate puzzle.

Burn and brew with coven 2 and glory

shall be thine.

The ballad clearly says with coven true, glory

shall be thine.

Does it?

It's coven 2!

That doesn't make any sense.

It does if you're a student of the

ballad!

There's a point at which I hand it

off to Bobby, and then Bobby really has

to take it all the way, not just

through his own piano version or the version

that we put in the computer.

Then we have to perform it and create

the demo.

He does all the engineering for that, and

that's only the beginning of the journey.

humming The first time we hear the ballad,

it is hummed by Akitha.

We don't know what that tune will become,

but it becomes integral to the entire show.

In that first episode, there's the true crime

version, and it is almost like WandaVision.

We hear a TV intro theme.

Down, down, down the road Down the winding

road That one is like old-fashioned blues.

The next time we hear it is the

sacred chant, and the sacred chant is a

version that exists where coven hands down to

coven.

All we need to do is sing the

ballad, and a door will appear, and we'll

be on our merry way to having all

of our magical dreams come true.

Okay!

In the show, there's this mythology that covens

are fated, that they're drawn together by mysterious

forces of fate, and that's definitely what happened

with our casting process.

We didn't actually seek out musical people, they

just came to us.

Seekest thou the road To all that's foul

and fair Gather sisters fire, water, earth, and

air Darkest hour, wake thy power Earthly and

divine Burn and brew with coven true And

glory shall be thine When we read the

scripts, we didn't know who was playing most

of the parts aside from Catherine.

This is just a little ditty.

So it turned out to be Patti LuPone.

Down, down, down the road Down the witch's

road And we were a little bit smiting

our foreheads because this is the voice of

our childhood, this is the most iconic voice

on Broadway, it's incredible.

So fun, so fun, it's like a kid's

party!

We said, Patti, what part do you want

to sing?

Do you want to do the low part,

do you want to do the middle, what

do you want to do?

And she's like, darling, I'm a soprano, and

I do not sing back up!

So put me on the top, baby!

We recorded the song in the studio, and

Joe and I were there the same day

Patti was performing.

Not performing, it seemed like a performance.

She was recording.

But, I mean, she's hitting these high, high

notes and, like, belting, and honestly, it was

kind of rude because they put me and

Joe after her, and I was like, why

is this the order?

Ali and I were both really bashful to

hear it, especially in public like that for

the first time, because I was like, oh

my god, hearing myself in front of Patti

LuPone?

You were so surprised by yourself.

I was like, where am I?

Oh, man, I was so intimidated.

Also, you're recording with, like, these EGOT legends,

you know, and our engineer in the booth

is somebody that's, like, recorded, like, huge pop

stars, and then there's just, like, me, just

coming in being like, I hope I'm on

key!

Ali's got a gorgeous voice.

Ali was singing high with me, and Catherine's

got this rock voice.

So it was fun for, you know, for

everybody to discover their instrument, and then because

we had become sisters, there's no judgment, there's

just exploration and love.

I'm so excited!

I don't know, I can't judge myself singing,

I really love karaoke, but that was one

of those really exciting days for sure.

You know, you've got this.

Down, down, down the road Down the riches

road Down, down, down the road Down, down,

down Down, down Follow me, my friend To

glory at the end What is that?

Was that there before?

No.

Open it.

Is this the road?

Because we should really, really go, like, right

now!

All right, here goes nothing.

There is a comic called The Witch's Road,

which we looked at and pored over, and

then came up with our own interpretation of

the comic and of the world of it.

And it was an enormous endeavor in the

writer's room to figure out, you know, what

is the mythology of it, what does it

look like, what does it feel like, how

does the world function.

So The Witch's Road is a legend, it

is a myth.

Everybody knows a witch who knows a witch

who has an auntie or a sister or

somebody who went on the road and was

never heard from again.

So there is a lot of mystery at

the top of the show surrounding what is

the road, where is the road, what does

it look like.

I'm super excited to be taking a nearly

fully practical approach with this show.

When we were trying to figure out ways

to ensure that the show spiritually felt like

a spinoff to WandaVision, we looked back at

the golden age of fantasy and horror.

And so we utilized matte paintings, backdrops and

miniatures and forced perspective to create this show

and so the cast was able to feel

grounded on set, which is so incredible.

Rule number one, do not step off the

road without you.

I remember when Jack and Mary were saying

one of the things that was very important

to them about the making of this show

is that it be practical, not so reliant

on blue or green screens.

It recalled those movie going experiences of my

childhood, like Wizard of Oz, of course, in

particular, but any of those that are just

about backdrops and actors in these huge sound

stages where the whole thing is so immersive

that you are just in a completely different

world.

That's exactly how I pictured it.

Yes.

Suits you.

John Collins, our production designer, just got right

inside of Jack Schafer's mind and he created

this incredible set.

It all starts with a drawing and an

illustration that we did to kind of get

the look of the trees correct and from

that point we had our sculptors do some

little models that we made sure the look

of the trees was dialed in, but that

being said, then we didn't just make 50

of the same trees.

We ended up, I think it was 55

individual trees that we sculpted.

We built a series of steel armatures and

over the top of those steel armatures we

had basically sculpting foam that our sculptors put

into place and then we have the plasters

come behind them and add some of the

bark textures and smaller detail.

Then we have the painters come over the

top of that and add all the texture

and the paint work and then we have

our greens team at the end adding a

few real branches to the end of each

and adding moss and leaves to some of

these trees.

So each one kind of has their individual

character and since multiple people were working on

it, the individual artists were able to put

a little fun twist on each of those.

I never doubted us for a second.

We talked about the deep greens of the

forest and that's kind of the danger zone

if they step off of the path and

then we have different leaf colors that define

the path depending on which trial they're going

to.

So we have blue leaves, we have kind

of a yellow and red mixture, we have

purple leaves.

In a way, the color of the leaves

kind of gives a clue as to the

next trial that they're going to.

Waxing moon.

The fire phase.

It's splitting a fine line between trying to

make it feel real in the first few

episodes because we want to believe that we're

in a quote unquote real place and then

as our story develops and we see that

it's a little bit of a construct of

a teen slash Billy's mind, at that point

we start to see the seams in our

scenery a little bit and we start to

realize that it's a little bit more theatrical

than we once thought it was.

I remember the first time we walked onto

the set, me, Jack and Catherine, in the

road we had like a big hug and

I just started crying.

I've had a lot of incredible days working

within the MCU but today perhaps is probably

the most rewarding I've ever had to see

the cast and the crew react so viscerally

is a really special thing.

I couldn't believe the scale of it.

I couldn't believe the detail and I couldn't

believe the practical magic of it.

I mean we had little fireflies actually that

would just like glow on and off and

little mushrooms that would like light up and

the backdrops that would be for different times

of the day and the lighting board on

the ceiling was just absolutely incredible.

Look at the moon you guys!

It's so cool!

There was a lot of R&D going

into not just the base of the road

itself but also special moments like looking off

into the beach house which we built as

a miniature and put it in front of

a backing.

The art department generates a set of blueprints

of what the house would be if it

was built full scale.

We take that blueprint, we enter everything into

the computer and we scale everything down to

the scale we're working at and then we

dissect all of the parts when we start

assembling them so we basically hand cut the

pieces that have to be hand cut like

all of the shingles that are covering the

house are all cut out of cedar they're

cut to scale size and they're cut by

hand.

All the little copper flashings on the roof

are scaled down and cut by hand.

We try to make it as authentic as

we can.

It'll probably take us about three weeks start

to finish to build the beach house.

We put all the detail pieces on we'll

3D print all of the windows and doors

and rocks and things of that nature.

We'll send everything over to our paint department,

they'll paint everything and then the guys at

our other shop will start doing all the

miniature plants and grass and all that stuff

to finish the dressing.

It was really important not only to pull

off the effect of the miniature and the

background but we also have our characters approaching

it and there's a transition from the pathway

and the leaves and the sand so we

had it probably 60 feet away from where

our actors were standing but we also had

that kind of foreground piece with grasses and

fencing and stuff like that that kind of

funneled your eye toward the miniature itself.

Now this is a house.

Getting to do things practically is such a

joy and that beach house, we planned that

we've been planning that for months because on

our journey the women are on the road

and then the beach house appears and we

go from dark to sunset so figuring out

how to do that reveal and we're using

this beautiful flare so it's months and months

and months in the making for that one

shot and when that shot happened like I

literally was like crying.

I'm like it happened and it was beautiful!

There are multiple layers there that we figured

out kind of in a 3D model and

then still when you're putting it all together

we're taking our best guess but we all

kind of breathe a sigh of relief when

the frame actually gets up on the day

and it's all working correctly.