Elizabeth Olsen and Other ‘Avengers’ Actors Found Out About ‘Infinity War’ Ending the Day They Filmed It
Zack Sharf
[Editor’s Note: This article includes spoilers for “Avengers: Infinity War”]
Imagine learning your long-running character is going to die and then being told to go film said death. According to Elizabeth Olsen, that’s exactly what happened to her and many other members of her “Avengers: Infinity War” cast. During her appearance at Ace Comic-Con (via ScreenRant), Olsen said directors Anthony and Joe Russo broke the news about her death just hours before she was scheduled to film the scene. Olsen was told about the death in a van, no less.
“I found out from the Russos exactly what was going to happen and it wasn’t until we shot it on that day we learned what the ending was,” Olsen said. “They took us into a van—all of us—we were in a van with air conditioning because it was very hot and they told us how the movie was going to end and no one knew. And they were like, ‘Now we’re shooting it, go!’ and we were like ‘How are we supposed to interpret that?’”
The “Infinity War” ending is bound to go down as one of the most shocking film moments of 2018. The end finds the villainous Thanos achieving his goal of obtaining all the Infinity Stones in order to wipe out half of the universe’s population. With just the snap of figures, Thanos ends the Avengers and numerous characters are killed off, including Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, among many other superheroes.
Marvel was incredibly protective of the film’s plot as to not spoil the ending for fans in advance of the release (the directors even wrote a letter to fans asking them not to spoil the film on social media), so it makes sense the studio went to the extreme of not even telling many of the actors about the shocking death twist. It appears the only people who knew about the twist in advance were Cumberbatch and Mark Ruffalo, who spoiled the ending in a 2016 interview that somehow nobody picked up on at the time.
“Avengers: Infinity War” opened in April and has grossed over $2 billion worldwide. The movie is now playing in theaters nationwide.
