WandaVision and Agatha Creator Jac Schaeffer Reveals the Marvel Character She Couldn’t Leave Behind

Few people have a better understanding of what it means to steward a Marvel TV series in the Disney+ streaming era than Jac Schaeffer. Assisted by some pandemic-related schedule juggling, it was the Schaeffer-created WandaVision that served as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s televised opening act in early 2021. The New Jersey-born, California-raised writer and producer followed that well-received effort up with the equally well-received (but significantly less-watched) Agatha Harkness spinoff Agatha All Along late last year.

Now the creative mind that helped launch the MCU’s television sandbox is taking a step back from these superhero toys for a bit. Originally attached to the upcoming Vision series Vision Quest, a de facto third part in a Wanda-verse trilogy, Schaeffer departed the project due to scheduling conflicts with finishing Agatha All Along.

“I’m excited to watch [Vision Quest] as a fan,” Schaeffer tells Den of Geek during an interview at SCAD TVfest in Atlanta. “So many of my colleagues are on that show, and I just wish them the best. I can’t wait to see it.”

Beyond the well-wishes for the Vision Quest team, Schaeffer doesn’t feel the need to harp on future seasons or spinoffs of her Marvel TV projects. One of her Agatha All Along stars, Patti LuPone, already did the leg work for her in shooting down rumors of a second season for Agatha. In fact, a cheerful but intimidating publicist prowls around Schaeffer on the SCAD TVfest red carpet to shoot down season 2 queries just in case these nosey journalists didn’t get Patti LuPone’s message.

Schaeffer is, however, delighted to talk about Agatha All Along as a now-completed work. Commenting on recent reports that Marvel scuttled plans for a Hulkling appearance, the showrunner reveals another Marvel-ish character that she was adamant on including.

“Of course, Hulkling is gonna be a conversation because we’re dealing with characters that touch Hulkling,” she says. “But once we were writing, the cast was what it was. I will say that it was my personal mission to get Ralph Bohner back on the chessboard. I was like ‘I’m not doing the show unless Evan Peters is in his trailer.'”

In addition to Evan Peters’s unfortunate Westview resident, Agatha All Along saw Schaeffer reuniting with WandaVision‘s not-so-secret weapons: EGOT-winning composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Schaeffer describes going to the pair with an ambitious request to craft “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road,” a song with many different iterations that would be the narrative and thematic backbone of the entire series.

“Luckily, they love that kind of challenge,” Schaeffer says. “But more than WandaVision, I had to get a little bit in the weeds with them with the lyrics. They needed to line up with the mythology we were building about witchcraft, the truth of the ballad, what it means, and where it came from. I was expecting them to start with the sacred chant, which is the one they do in the basement, but they elected to do the ’70s Alice’s version first.”

The topic that Schaeffer is happiest to discuss, however, is her favorite moment from Agatha All Along‘s nine-episode run. Though the series had many standout sequences in its latter half, Schaeffer points to a relatively unassuming exchange from the second episode in which Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) tells Billy a.k.a. Wiccan (Joe Locke) that the Witches’ Road isn’t real.

“That is one of the very few moments in the show where Kathryn is performing truth,” she says. “I love the movie Heat. And in Heat, if they just had killed Waingro, the whole thing would be over. If [Billy] had just listened to her, it would be over. We wouldn’t have gone off on this enormous journey. I just love Kathryn. She’s a witch. She’s a total witch.”

Kathryn Hahn is indeed an acting witch. Someone should hire her to play an actual witch. Perhaps in a second season of Aga…sorry, I’m now being told that Patti LuPone is cutting off my internet access.

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