Elizabeth Olsen may be best known to fans for her role playing Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but she has a number of other credits to her name as well including her current role as Leigh Shaw on the Facebook Watch series Sorry for Your Loss. However, there’s another television project that Olsen auditioned for that she had actually forgotten about because of how badly the audition went. The role? None other than the khaleesi herself, Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones.
During a recent appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan, Olsen revealed that she had forgotten about the Game of Thrones audition because of just how bad it was, joking that the ill-fated audition was now just a part of “selective memory” regarding her experiences.
“Someone had asked about a terrible audition story, a journalist, not a good time to remember something like that,” Olsen explained. “I was like ‘I actually really love auditioning, so I can’t really think of anything’, and [then] I was like, ‘Oh that’s right. I auditioned for Game of Thrones.'”
Olsen went on to explain that she had gone in to read for the role of Daenerys, but that the whole experience was just so bad that, in retrospect, she wished had stopped the audition as it was happening.
“It was for Khaleesi — she was just burned alive and then I start making this huge speech,” Olsen said. “I was in the smallest room with the casting director, they didn’t even have a reader, and that was the furthest I ever got. It was that bad. It was horrible. I was like, ‘This is uncomfortable for me, I’m sure it’s awkward for her, no one’s going to enjoy this experience.'”
“I should have [stopped it],” Olsen added. “I think I would now. I’d be, ‘I don’t think I’m going to do this any justice… hopefully call me back at a different time for something else.”
Olsen forgetting about her Game of Thrones audition is a bit humorous, but her memory is much sharper when it comes to her positive memories, including her favorite one involving Marvel Studios. In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Olsen shared that her experiences in Edinburgh were precious ones.
“Being able to take over Edinburgh,” Olsen said. “You’re taking over a historic city and city center all night long, and we light these cathedrals up with our [director of photography’s] team. You’re photographing something and seeing a part of a city that you never would have gotten to have that experience with. And my favorite thing is all the rigging it takes to make me fly. I was just, like, all over Edinburgh being swung over here, ratcheted up over there, or thrown into a mattress in a different part…It was so thrilling. It’s true movie magic what everyone is able to do on these films.”
WandaVision is set to hit Disney+ Spring 2021. Other upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, Spider-Man 3 on July 16, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021, and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022. Marvel Studios Disney+ series without release dates include Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk.
