In Marvel Studios' "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," the MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.

Entertainment Affair recently joined Benedict Cumberbatch (Stephen Strange) and co-stars Xochitl Gomez (America Chavez), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlett Witch), and Benedict Wong (Wong); director Sam Raimi, producer Kevin Feige, and writer Michael Waldron at a virtual press conference to discuss the mind-bending action-adventure. Check out a few highlights of the event below.

Doctor Strange goes through some changes over the course of the movie
“He's quite a maverick, quite an outsider,” Cumberbatch shared. “He doesn't immediately strike you as a leader, despite his prominence in the MCU. And that's what makes him really interesting and conflicted as a hero. This one was about examining that and finding his flaws, his faults, his humanity, as well as his strengths, and renewing and deepening our understanding of him. I would say this is more of a self-examination and holding a mirror up to him.”

Elizabeth Olsen on Wanda Maximoff embracing her destiny and her identity
“In the previous films before ‘WandaVision,’ I took up a lane for storytelling that was more grounded in sincerity, love, loss, grief,” explained Olsen. “With ‘WandaVision’ I got to become anything and everything and really grow her into a woman. Leading her to accepting that she is this mythic woman and that is her destiny.

“I hope that in this film people see that continuation of her acceptance of who she is, the journey that she has taken to get to this moment. I feel like she has way more clarity now than ever in this film.”

Xochitl Gomez brings youthfulness to the MCU as America Chavez
“One thing that was so important to me was that this is a very adult movie. There are lots of adults in it. It’s very heavy. So, I wanted to make sure that America still had that youthfulness and still had that, fake it ’til you make it, just resilience. But, when you’ve got some crazy stuff happening it’s a little hard. But I think one thing that really helps is that she is 14, which is younger than she was in any of the comics.”

Kevin Feige on representing the LGBTQ+ community in the film
“We always say that these films represent the world as it is and the world outside your window, as they used to say in publishing. That aspect of America’s character is from the comics, so we always want to adapt them as well and as truthfully as we can. I think when people see the movie, much like in life, it is not any one thing that defines any one character. She’s a 14-year-old girl figuring out this very traumatic element of her life, which is not the LGBT issue. It is the fact that she keeps being tossed around the multiverse. Being truthful to that and showcasing that. That is not, what the movie is about, but it is an important part of the character she becomes in the comics. So we wanted to touch upon that.”

Sam Raimi on working with the legacy actors and lining up the storylines of the MCU
“They’re opinionated. They know their characters better than anybody. So, they’ll recognize while playing a scene, ‘This is untrue. This feels like a manipulation. It could be more real,’” Raimi said. “We’d make changes in the moment, trying to riff on that very good idea. When you’ve got great team members, as a director, you want to pull the best [of] their ideas together and make something better than you could’ve made on your own.”

“Great actors, great ideas, a script that was constantly changing. But it was a very lively process. Not only that but the other movies that we have storylines from, some were being made concurrently or had just finished. We had meetings with the director, saying, ‘What does Doctor Strange know by the end of [Spider-Man: No Way Home]? Does he even remember the Multiverse?’ We have plenty of questions that Michael had to take into the script in the moment and take their chances and that change rippled through our movie.”

Marvel Studios' "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" opens in theaters May 6.