Kathryn Hahn had a scene-stealing turn in Marvel’s WandaVision earlier this year, but she says that the upcoming Agatha Harkness spin-off, Agatha: House of Harkness, came as a “total surprise”.
The actor, who can currently be seen in Apple’s The Shrink Next Door, earned an Emmy nod for the role of Agatha Harkness, the witch who posed as Wanda Maximoff’s busybody neighbour in the limited series.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Hahn revealed that she’d “never heard” of Agatha before taking the part, but that the spin-off series was testament to the original show, WandaVision.
Noting that the spin-off “was a total surprise”, she explained: “I mean, you’d have to be a deep diving… comic book aficionado to know Agatha Harkness from the comics. I had never heard of her before. And so the fact that this is happening is just testament to the incredible writing [and] the, you know, weird timing. It’s so bananas.”
She continued: “It’s going to be such a great, fun dive into [that world]… It’s so meta that WandaVision was a show about sitcoms, and of course, it’s going to have a spin-off. It just makes total sense, in a very meta way.”
The song Agatha All Along (during which Agatha revealed herself to be the show’s villain) was also nominated for an Emmy – and has since picked up a Grammy nomination.
Hahn revealed that she had her fingers crossed the hit song will feature “somewhere” in House of Harkness, which is being teased as a dark comedy.
“I have to tell you, even hearing the name of the show was a surprise to me and I love it so much,” she said. “So [the producers] keep it really close. I’m very excited to meet with them and hear what they’re cooking up because I know it’s going to be fabulous. It’s our same producer and showrunner as WandaVision, who I think are such geniuses, so I’m sure music clearly is a part of Agatha’s soul – crossing my fingers that it’s a part somewhere of that show as well.”
The actor, who has also been cast in the upcoming Knives Out sequel, went on to say that she has “zero idea” whether the new Agatha spin-off series will have a similar tone to WandaVision, noting: “It could be completely its own bird. So who knows? But I trust their brains big time, I loved what they did with WandaVision.”
Elsewhere, Hahn also paid tribute to the MCU’s fans and recalled a moment she “burst into tears” after receiving a touching gift from some of them.
She added: “I know that the Marvel fans are so fabulous and so passionate. Someone actually had sent through my beautiful hairstylist a book, like a birthday book of thank-you letters from, like, all these fans. Because that’s the way to communicate with me because I have no social media and it meant so much to me.
“I burst into tears when I was reading it. You just don’t realise as an actor, you’re just doing one job hopefully in front of the other and I was just– I’ll hold onto it for the rest of my life. It was so tender.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Morris.
Kathryn Hahn will next appear in The Shrink Next Door, only on Apple TV Plus.