Matt Shakman Interview: WandaVision | Screen Rant
When WandaVision hits Disney+ on January 15, it will not only kick open the door for Phase 4 of the MCU but also look back on the history of television. The limited series starts with Wanda and Vision living a 1950s sitcom before moving through different decades and genres in a whirlwind experience for viewers.
Director Matt Shakman spoke to Screen Rant about how his own career experience made him the perfect fit for the series, as well as what tricks the creative team used to make sure they were honoring the genres they stepped into.
You've had an incredible success in the world of comedy, most notably It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and you've done epics like Game of Thrones. How did those help ease you into your first Marvel Studios experience?
Matt Shakman: This show feels like it's drawing on all of the different experiences I've had as a director in a great way. I'm using every tool in my toolkit to get to make this happen, because it's comedy, it's large-scale action and visual effects, and it's drama. But also, I was a sitcom child actor when I was a kid too, so it really feels like a trip down memory lane shooting on some of the backlots that I shot on as a kid. It really is this amazing thing where I'm like, "Gosh, I really didn't realize I was preparing for this job when I was doing all these other things."
For as many hits shows as you've worked on, how does the Marvel experience compare in terms of any pressure to deliver?
Matt Shakman: Oh, man, it's such a joy. I have been a huge Marvel fan since I was a kid. Marvel Comics Spider-Man was everything to me when I was four and five years old, and still is, to be truthful. Then for the MCU, I was right there in the front row on opening day for Iron Man; I've been there for every movie ever since, probably in the same seat.
I am honored to be working on an MCU project, and I'm incredibly honored to be helping to launch this whole Disney+ Marvel limited series thing that's happening. So, there's certainly always pressure, but it's mostly excitement and just joy.
Marvel's known for having some of the best improv lines in the business. How much room was there for improvisation during the shoot?
Matt Shakman: We had a little bit, for sure. This show was incredibly collaborative, and I had the best cast in the in the world. We had so much fun building this. When you're doing comedy, it really is about being open to the good idea in the moment. As a director, you have to be working with the magic of what's happening in front of you. It's the same with It's Always Sunny, for years; you go for that magic little moment where it all just kind of comes to life. Then you grab it, you hold on to it, and then you run with it.
So, yes, definitely. Some lines were changed and moments were found. But the writing is beautiful; Jac Schaeffer and her team have done an incredible job. So, it was a great collaboration from beginning to end.
There's the usual MCU special effects in this show, but there's also more practical effects than normal. How much of that was a challenge to you, and how did you mesh the two worlds together so fluidly?
Matt Shakman: That was one of the things I really wanted to do from the get-go, when we were working in the 50s and 60s and 70s - to do things the way they would have done it back then. At our first meeting with our special effects maestro Dan Sudick, who's won every award and been nominated for a million Oscars for all the big Avengers movies, I was like, "Okay, Dan, you're gonna get mad at me. But can we do everything on wires and rods?" And instead of him being like, "No, I blow things up!" He was like, "This is the greatest thing ever."
He had actually been trained by the guys who had done Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. He came up in the business doing that kind of stuff, and he was thrilled to be able to do it again. It's actually very difficult to do, and it's kind of like playing a musical instrument that no longer exists. He had to train all of his people to figure it out again and dust off those skills, and it's really charming, I think. I'm glad we went to all those efforts.
Reports suggest the team shot the first two episodes only in two days. Was there a similar timeframe for other episodes?
Matt Shakman: The first episode was shot over a couple of days, sort of - the live studio stuff. The second episode was not you know. Part of what we were doing was adjusting to how they would have made those shows. For the 60 shows, our references were more like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie - and those shows were single camera, like the way you make a movie even today. Four wall sets, not a live audience, a recorded laugh track. Those require a very different approach and take more time to shoot.
If you had the chance to come back for a season 2 of WandaVision, would you be up for that? Or would you like to explore any other characters outside of Wanda and Vision in the MCU?
Matt Shakman: I love being a part of the MCU; it's been such a joy. Honestly, as a huge fan, I would love to stay involved in some way. Who knows what the future holds? That's one of the great things about the Marvel Universe: you never know where these characters are gonna go, or me as a filmmaker. Who knows.
Having worked on episodes of a classic series like Mad Men, you were prepared to deal with capturing the era for WandaVision. But what nuances and tricks did you use to keep it Marvel?
Matt Shakman: I have worked on a lot of different period things, whether it's Mad Men, where I actually first met Teyonah Parris, who plays Monica on the show. And I did a show called The Great for Hulu recently, which is a big period thing.
Whenever you're doing something in period, you have to make sure that your attention to detail is perfect. Every time you open the refrigerator, everything in that refrigerator better be exactly the way it should be - in the case of Mad Men, of course, there's no refrigerators in Russia during Catherine the Great's time.
But in terms of how you keep it all MCU, I think what's so great about this show is that it plays with so many different styles and worlds. So, we were able to do a lot of different things, and when we were doing something that was a period sitcom, we tried to be as authentic to that as possible. And when we're doing MCU and large-scale action stuff, we're trying to do it in the same way that you would expect from an MCU film.
The through line through all of it is not so much stylistic in terms of camera, it's storytelling. It's that this is all one big, beautiful little puzzle. And it's all being fueled by this beautiful romance between Wanda and Vision. That's the thing that's pulling you through the story.
Can you tell us if your sense of responsibility to the story changed when you found out you'd be the first introduction to Phase 4 due to the pandemic? If so, how did the story change with the extra time to work on it?
Matt Shakman: Nothing changed for us in terms of our narrative, or what we were doing in the show when we got moved to this position. But I will say that it seems kind of wonderful and fitting that the first Marvel show for Disney+ is this great love letter to the history of television. It makes sense and it feels right, so I'm glad that it ended up working out this way.