Creator Jac Schaeffer explains to THR why 'Agatha All Along' was the perfect title to settle on for the new Marvel series at the show's premiere. Plus, she opens up about what it was like to convince Patti LuPone to be a part of the series and the pressures to live up to 'WandaVision.'
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00:00This show had so many different titles throughout the process.
00:03Why is Agatha all along the perfect title for the show?
00:06Because she's at the end of every mystery, every lie, every con.
00:12And so, yeah, you can always peel back the layers.
00:15And like, there's going to be some double dealing in there.
00:18Courtesy of this lady.
00:20At what point did you decide to lean into the musical aspect of the show?
00:23From the absolute very beginning, there was no way that we were going to do
00:28an Agatha show without a musical element, given that her song took off
00:32so incredibly in WandaVision and that Catherine's so musical.
00:35And then selfishly for me, I just wanted another excuse to work with the Lopezes.
00:39So I sort of like, yeah, I manipulated the whole situation
00:42in order to get more music out of the deal.
00:45What was the pitch to Patti LuPone to come on board?
00:47Oh, gosh. You know, I was really ready.
00:50I was like, she's going to be so tough. She's going to be so scary.
00:52She is like the nicest, kindest, most lovely woman ever.
00:57And I said, you know, this I said, this is a show about witches.
01:01And she said, well, I am a witch.
01:03And I said, done and done.
01:05Let's let's let's get going.
01:08What sort of famous witches did you pull inspiration from while creating this?
01:12All of them.
01:13That was a lot of our research for this show, some sort of silly witch research.
01:17But we we took it very seriously.
01:18And so it's all the witches from pop culture and and then like,
01:22you know, the legitimate history of witches, especially in this country.
01:27So, yeah, I mean, name one.
01:28And we probably discuss them in the writers room.
01:31The trailer looks very spooky, maybe even a little scary.
01:34Would you say this is Marvel's spookiest or scariest show yet?
01:38I mean, I think that there have been like
01:43Marvel has like dabbled in horror before.
01:45But I think this is certainly I would say I would say spookiest
01:49because I do feel like with the witches and the Halloween of it,
01:53it does feel seasonally appropriate for sure.
01:57WandaVision was so well received and just so beloved.
02:00When you started working on this show, did you feel pressure
02:02to live up to what WandaVision was for so many people?
02:05I did. I mean, in truth, I would love to say, no, no, no, it's no big deal.
02:09But yeah, I mean, I I just you know, fans seemed so satisfied
02:15and like they had had so much fun with WandaVision.
02:17And I wanted to provide that again because that's how I feel.
02:20Like, I want to be delighted by the content that I watch.
02:23And but eventually that sort of fell away because this is a very different show.
02:27And Agatha is a profoundly different character.
02:29And so it was just really about serving her and her story.
02:33How would you say this show is different than WandaVision?
02:36And how would you say that it's similar?
02:38Well, the reason it's similar is is like WandaVision.
02:40It is, you know, more of a puzzle box show.
02:43There's a lot of twists and turns, a lot of mystery, a lot of reveals.
02:47There's a lot of genre pastiche allusions to like familiar pop culture
02:52things. And the ways that it's different is, yeah, it's really spooky.
02:56It's dark. Our our lead is
03:00is not always nice.
03:03And but even WandaVision, I mean, I'm always interested in like
03:07kind of throwing away the binary of the good and evil.
03:09Everybody's got a little bit inside of them.
03:12But but let's be honest, Agatha is a little more evil than she is nice.