In WandaVision‘s second episode, “Don’t Touch That Dial,” the series begins to show you more of Westview, like Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and her neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) attend a meeting with other neighborhood women to help organize an upcoming talent show.
Although Wanda is excited by the idea of performing, her hopes of putting on a spectacle are somewhat soured when she meets Dottie Jones (Emma Caulfield), a woman introduced as WandaVision‘s idea of some sort of queen bee from the mid-20th century who takes pleasure in tormenting her housewives. It’s during a one-on-one conversation with Dottie of which Wanda is one WandaVisionis the first major failures in reality which introduces color to the otherwise black and white world, suggesting there may be more to Dottie than her sitcom façade shows.
When we spoke to Caulfield recently (whose other credits are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Beverly Hills, 90210) about WandaVision, she explained how, while she didn’t really get that much information to work with about the character, her confidence in the storytelling skills of series designer Jac Schaeffer was enough to convince her to sign up. However, as she got to know Dottie better, Caulfield realized that while her character certainly keeps secrets, she’s some sort of personality type that we’re all more than used to.
Charles Pulliam-Moore, io9: When you first came up WandaVision, what about Dottie you noticed? Because, I imagine there was only so much that you were informed about from the jump.
G / O Media can receive a commission
Emma Caulfield: Yes, Jac Schaeffer is just a phenomenal writer. I was so blessed to work with her Timer, and she and I had wanted to work together for years since that movie, but just hadn’t found the right project. I was especially excited to speak her words again. I just always want to do a good job for myself, but I really wanted to do a good job for her with this. And for, you know, our captain, Kevin Feige.
io9: Then what about Jac’s stories that made you feel confident right away WandaVision?
Caulfield: She makes me proud to work now. I don’t know what that elusive magical thing she’s got, but she’s hilarious, and so smart, and so fast. Working on Timer was one of the highlights of my professional career. I desperately wanted that movie, and there was one other actor who usually beat me. Actually, she always did. She was my kryptonite. So when I got Timer, I was like, “Yeah!” because I beat my kryptonite and it’s really very rare to get something you want so badly.
io9: of course.
Caulfield: You know, you get a lot of bad scripts, and you do projects that you don’t want to do because you have a mortgage, or you’ve set up a certain way of life and you have to keep going. With WandaVision, it felt like an opportunity for something I love and someone to turn me on.
io9: While everyone living on “the show” has switched from episode to episode, there are common traits in the types of characters they are. We are introduced to Dottie as this queen bee character, but as the series progresses, what kind of archetype does she epitomize?
Caulfield: I’m trying to find a way to answer that without giving anything away, but to keep this conversation interesting. Regardless of what the show does in each episode, I always wanted her to have something recognizable or vulnerable about her that wasn’t clear to the audience but would be clear to me internally.
io9: What was that here?
Caulfield: With Dottie I ask “why [is she] threatened by this person? Why [is she] so bothered? And why [doesn’t she] trust them? ”Dottie is smarter than her general meanness would make you realize, and this general need of hers to hurt those around her really keeps her from beaming and overshadows everything else she has.
There is a brief moment in episode three where she says, “Hey, do these earrings make me look fat?” Funny line. Love it. Jac wrote it. It has apparently been thrown away, but it is not at all. At that point, no one is really around, and Dottie wonders, ‘What do I look like? I look good, right? “When I was filming that scene with Dottie’s husband, I remember just before we started to roll, I just leaned over and whispered, ‘Besides, I never loved you’, and then someone yells ‘action’, and my scene partner has this brief moment of confusion. B.ut that was just for me. In that moment, Dottie is as trapped in the privacy of what Wanda’s world in Westview is as anyone else. She plays a part, but on some level she still needs approval, and she hates it.
io9: Because of the roles you’ve played, you have connections to some of the greatest fandoms out there in the larger pop culture landscape. Big picture, what kind of bigger shifts have you seen in the tone and temperature of fandoms?
Caulfield: When I started, there was no social media presence at all, and you could basically just do your job with no repercussions. The only people you really had to worry about were with the network and whether they would keep you. You didn’t really have the interaction or support from the fans, and feedback was delayed that much. You could actually grab a magazine and read it weeks later, as opposed to this instant love, cancellation, and shipping feedback loop.
io9: Right.
Caulfield: [laughing] I think I am very happy to have done a lot of work without making sure I don’t slip. In a way, it’s like being with a lot of Dotties all the time, you know, because there’s always the worry of having to do things right because if you don’t, the Dotties can come to me forever like ‘get her away . “Having this Marvel fan base built in is incredible, but then again, I really hope I’m doing well because I really don’t need fans trying to kill me.
WandaVision now steams on Disney +.
Make sure to follow us on our Instagram @ for more information.io9dotcom.