The Wild Thing Kathryn Hahn Had To Wear While Shooting The WandaVision Finale
It's safe to say that Marvel's first television series on Disney+ has been a huge success. WandaVision, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as their MCU characters Wanda Maximoff and Vision, follows the iconic couple as they live in a magically constructed suburban sitcom life in the New Jersey town of Westview. While Wanda's power has a lot to do with what's happening in Westview, the episodes slowly reveal that there's a bit more going on behind the scenes. That's where Agnes, also known as Agatha Harkness, comes in. The character is a witch with similar powers to Wanda, played by Kathryn Hahn.
The first season of WandaVision builds up to the big face off between Wanda and Agatha, as the latter attempts to convince Wanda to give up her magic. As they battle all across Westview, Wanda must make a tough decision — whether to stay in her suburban heaven with her fake family, or sacrifice it all to save everyone else. While the whole season is evidence of just how much money and effort went into WandaVision's production, the season finale takes the cake, feeling like a full-blown Marvel movie.
Hahn, who has mainly starred in comedies throughout her long career, got her first experience in a large-scale production of this sort with WandaVision. One experience in particular, involving something she had to wear while filming the finale, really helped Hahn realize just how much effort Marvel Studios puts into the MCU.
Kathryn Hahn had to wear a special cooling suit under her WandaVision costume
In an interview with the New York Times about the show, Hahn talked about filming the finale all decked out in Agatha's witchy costume. The purple ensemble features heavy, thick and embellished fabric making up her dress and cape, which flows behind her as she flies around. According to Hahn, "It was very hot when we were shooting some of the big finale scenes. My costume was a lot of fabric."
In order to counteract the heat while shooting extensive stunt work, the WandaVision production team had Hahn put on a "cooling suit." Hahn describes the suit as "something that you put underneath your costume that has, like, tubes of water. And then my dresser, this amazing woman, Beth, she would follow me around with, basically, a gallon of water and she would pump freezing water into this vest with these tubes on, between takes, so that I wouldn't pass out." Apparently, this was the specific moment when Hahn realized that WandaVision and Marvel productions are "a different rodeo," as she put it, thinking, "wow, I've never had this on any other gig."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, each episode of WandaVision, and the subsequent Marvel TV series coming soon, cost around $25 million to produce. In comparison, Disney+'s other biggest series, The Mandalorian, costs around $15 million an episode to make. With nine episodes in WandaVision's first season, that means that the total budget likely cost around $225 million dollars, which is just shy of the MCU film Guardians of the Galaxy's final budget of $232 million, which went over the initial plan (via Forbes). Knowing this, it's no wonder WandaVision was able to have things like cooling suits available on set.