Elizabeth Olsen passes polygraph test saying she's "never met" John Krasinski
Which suggests Olsen is either a pretty good liar, or that Marvel goes to some pretty extreme lengths to keep its secrets
[Note: This article discusses major spoilers for Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.]
Let’s start with a disclaimer here (after the disclaimer we just started with): Polygraph tests are bullshit. There’s a whole host of academic research that shows, in no uncertain terms, that polygraphs do not “detect lies” with any degree of accuracy, that they’re mostly just used by law enforcement as an intimidation tactic, and that they have absolutely zero place in the investigation of crimes or the determining of a human being’s culpability in anything that matters.
That being said, they are a pretty neat way to make celebrities squirm a little bit.
Vanity Fair proved that again this week, releasing a new “Famous Person X Takes A Lie Detector Test” interview, this time with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness star Elizabeth Olsen in the proverbial hot seat. (Not to be confused with the time Elizabeth Olsen went on Hot Ones, declaring hilariously that she felt “brave” and “strong” at the end while in a sort of capsaicin-imposed fugue state.)
The result was one of the more interesting interviews we’ve seen Olsen give to date; it’s fascinating to see her thread the question of how much honesty is too much when asked about things like the quality of her high school friend Danielle Haim’s brief performance in Licorice Pizza—one of the only times she gets dinged for outright “lying” by the test administrator—and the apparent drifting apart of her friendship with Chris Evans. (She’s also charmingly unapologetic about her recent efforts to start smoking weed, and kicking her husband Robbie Arnett’s band Milo Greene off of her regular music playlist.)
For the purposes of a pop culture web site, though, the most relevant bit of the interview comes about 10 minutes in, when a picture of John Krasinski is placed in front of Olsen and she’s asked “Do you think this man is the smartest man alive?” After getting over her laughter at the very idea, Olsen makes an interesting claim: “I don’t know him, though… I’ve never met him.”
Which is interesting, in so far as Olsen’s character Wanda Maximoff certainly has met a character played by Krasinski, who, bowing to the inevitabilities of inexplicable fan desires, briefly appears as the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards in Multiverse. The two characters don’t, uh, “interact” for very long, but they certainly do have a scene together.
Which raises one of two possibilities: Either a) Elizabeth Olsen is a pretty good liar (possibly even a professional “say things that aren’t true while pretending to be fake people” person) trying to keep up Marvel’s beloved veil of secrecy, or b) she legitimately has never met Krasinski. The latter is a genuinely fascinating thought; among other things, it raises questions about how late the members of Multiverse’s spoiler-heavy Illuminati were chosen, and then cast, and how heavy the secrecy must have been around those scenes.
None of which Olsen is going to get into while hooked up to a polygraph, mind you. “I’ve never met that man,” she replies consistently, even when it’s noted they’ve been in the same movie. “I’ve never met him. I’ve met his wife.”