10 years ago, the Marvel Cinematic Universe opened the doors to realms beyond Earth in Thor. Among the actors who joined Chris Hemsworth for his first outing as the God of Thunder was Kat Dennings’ Darcy Lewis, who worked with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster and Stellan Skarsgard’s Erik Selvig in New Mexico. With Dennings finally returning to the MCU in Disney+’s WandaVision, she recently recalled the extreme levels of secrecy that went into her Thor audition, which included having to go to a fake address.
During her visit to the Keep It podcast, Kat Dennings described her Thor audition as “intense,” because when going in, all she knew was that this was a superhero movie. The actress continued:
Fake sides, character didn't exist, signed a thing at this address, I looked around, and I was like 'There's no one at this address' and then someone came over in a golf cart, and he was like, 'I'm here to take you to the real place' and I was like 'What?’… Well, 100% like abduction, but it was like a different place entirely, it was so, so crazy.
While Thor was only the fourth movie out of the MCU gate, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 preceding it, this superhero franchise had become quite popular in its early years, especially with the promise that Thor and the other starring heroes of the time would eventually team up in The Avengers. So it makes sense that Marvel Studios wanted to keep as much about Thor secret as possible, including to people like Kat Dennings who were auditioning, which continues to this day. At the same time, I can’t blame Dennings for wondering at the time if she was being kidnapped.
Before Thor, Kat Dennings had appeared in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The House Bunny, but Thor marked her first time appearing in a blockbuster feature. Dennings reprised Darcy Lewis for Thor: The Dark World, but the immediate years following Thor saw her primarily acting in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, which also starred Beth Behrs. As such, Darcy hasn’t been mentioned in the Marvel movies since the events of the Thor sequel, and while she did co-lead a book with Erik Selvig called Avengers: Infinity War: The Cosmic Quest Volume Two: Aftermath, that book’s no longer considered canon since Selvig was revealed in Avengers: Endgame to have been snapped away by Thanos.
Which brings us to WandaVision, where Darcy Lewis now holds a doctorate and has been brought into the strange situation involving Wanda Maximoff and her sitcom fantasies unfolding within the town of Westview. Kat Dennings’ character will appear alongside Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau, but with the character having not yet appeared on the series yet, we have no idea what’s specifically in store for her. As for Dennings’ MCU future beyond WandaVision, the actress expressed doubt that she’ll appear in Thor: Love and Thunder, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t pop up elsewhere in the years to come.
New episodes of WandaVision drop Fridays on Disney+. As for Thor Odinson, he’ll reunite with Jane Foster and take on Gorr the God Butcher when Thor: Love and Thunder drops on May 6, 2022. Keep track of other Marvel movies on the way with our detailed guide.
