“I have been in so many ensembles where I was, for example, the horny mother. Or the horny divorced mother. And I loved all of those roles! But this was something that Women – and this one beautiful gay boy – it just felt next level.”
“Agatha All Along” star Kathryn Hahn zooms in from her home in LA on her laptop, which could use a little magic of its own. “I don’t want to point the finger at my children, but someone knocked over my computer so that my screen cracked and has a million different colors. It looks like ‘Tron’,” she laughs. But not The Laughter, the giggle you probably know from her unforgettable role as disguised witch and ever-present neighbor Agnes/Agatha in Disney’s WandaVision. The mother of two (with husband, fellow actor Ethan Sandler) says she was more than happy to take on the full witch role for this appearance.
“I love to cackle,” she says. “I was so glad they let me. I thought, ‘I have to cackle, guys, come on. I know it’s exaggerated, but we need a witch who cackles.'”
Hahn’s performance was so perfect and hilarious and so attuned to the evolving genres of this sitcom-dramedy that the studio would have been crazy not to develop her character further. And they did: The Disney+ miniseries “Agatha All Along” premieres on September 18. “I knew it was going to be a really new adventure,” Hahn says. “It felt like there was something on a deeper level than just magic and witches and the music, which is so much fun. But there was something about the whole quest for your own power that was something else again.”
Hahn, 51, has long been a popular presence in film and television, an actress who can be relied upon to bring nuance and credibility to any storyline, no matter how outlandish. But taking on the lead role in a series like this, she says, is a different matter entirely. “I never thought in a million years that this would be coming my way so soon.”
We meet Agatha after the events of the WandaVision finale, which left the witch without her powers or her memory and, as it turns out, stuck in yet another TV genre: crime noir. Hahn channels her Mare of Easttown/True Detective vibe, playing a tough detective solving a small-town murder.
“I love, Love a hardened detective with a past,” she says, laughing. “You know, she lives at work, maybe has a slight drinking problem, has a bit of a flirtatious relationship with some of her colleagues, but she lives for justice. We took it seriously; we didn’t really want to wink at the audience – no pun intended.”
About that wink. Hahn has a moment in “WandaVision” — it’s when the series is set in the ’70s — where she lets out a wink that can be heard around the world, a wink that spawned a lasting meme useful to anyone who wants to imply a little duplicity. “I’m glad it’s such a flattering photo,” she says with a good-natured eye roll.
Hahn isn’t a social media person and never has been, but she loves hearing about this stuff. “I remember walking into a cannabis store – it’s legal in California – and seeing a sign that said, ‘We only sell smoking accessories,'” accompanied by this photo of her winking face.
But the beginning of “Agatha All Along” is actually quite open and tongue-in-cheek. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that our antiheroine will eventually discover the guile in her current situation and join forces with several other witches to “walk the witches’ way.” With their help, she can once again become the powerful figure she once was. Her coven cast is wild: Patti LuPone, Aubrey Plaza, Sasheer Zamata and Ali Ahn — plus Joe Locke (“Heartstopper”) as a mysterious goth teen with a spell that won’t let him reveal his name or backstory. The show unfolds into a journey down said path that includes a catchy musical number, a variety of spell-infused locations (this writer’s favorite: Nancy Meyers’ house) and a few deadly incidents.
Hahn’s evolution as Agatha feels like a wonderfully meta representation of her career. Much like the various versions of Agnes in “WandaVision,” she has been stealing the show as a character actress in mainstream films and series for decades, from early roles in “Anchorman,” “Step Brothers” and “Parks and Recreation” to her first Emmy nomination for “Transparent” and her voice for the supervillain in 2018’s brilliant “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Man Universe.” She followed that with two more Emmy nominations for “WandaVision” and “Tiny Beautiful Things.”
Hahn fits into so many genres and yet is always so itself that she is a truly unique presence. A 2021 hashtag on Vulture dubbed it “Hahnassaince,” which didn’t mean Hahn was returning to the spotlight after an absence, but rather a recognition that she has been delivering brilliant performances for decades, some of which haven’t received the praise they deserve.
The transition into middle age, Hahn says, brought with it a plethora of new and different responsibilities and a corresponding comfort with bringing more of herself to her roles. “When I was in drama school, acting was doing different genres and different roles and, you know, putting on wigs and costumes. That’s what I thought it was. A total transformation,” says Hahn, an Ohioan who studied theater at Northwestern University and the Yale School of Drama. “And then there was a time when I was really asked to bring myself, and that’s when I found the most fulfillment as a performer. When I started letting go of so much artificiality. That’s what we all want to see – that messy kind of shadow woman, you know what I mean?”
A neat, disheveled demeanor and a preference for dark clothes are also what you get from Hahn’s red carpet appearance. “I try to stick to a uniform that is becoming, I would say, a little more masculine,” she says. “I love suits. I really like navy blue, black and beige. I have some great acquaintances who get me these old, old Japanese men’s suits that just fit perfectly. And I love old Dries, old Celine. I love loafers with tread soles.” Sometimes she wears heels, if only fleetingly. “For a very short time on a red carpet I can do that, but my husband usually leaves my Birkenstocks in his jacket.”
Her brunette mane has also become something of a trademark, dating back to her days as a salon receptionist in New York before she became famous. “All the guys there got together and gave me a Mason Pearson hairbrush for Christmas,” she says. “I was like, ‘Are you trying to tell me something?'” At the first auditions, she adds, “my agent would always say, a million years ago, ‘And run a brush through your hair!'”
Readers, she doesn’t. “I’ve always had long, messy hair. That’s always been my thing. It feels French.” It didn’t hurt that it added a little witchy appeal, either. “I think maybe (‘WandaVision’ creator) Jac (Schaeffer) would tell you that one of the main reasons I got this role was because I came in and I had a wild, messy head of hair. She was like, ‘There’s this witch!'”
The show’s costume department was instrumental in giving Hahn her own magic. “The show’s head seamstress had worked with Lucille Ball,” she says. “She had a coven in Northern California. And she put runes on the bottom of the cloak, like protective runes all around. And every time I put it on, I felt this power! I felt like a scarab, like one of those beetles. The whole thing felt so, so… analog.”
Her next project also takes her back to the relatively analog world of comedy: an Apple+ Hollywood comedy from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, “The Studio,” in which Hahn stars alongside Rogen, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz and Chase Sui Wonders. “It was real medicine after acting in such heavy stuff,” she says.
But right now she is wrapped up in the purple swirl of Agatha’s magic, pondering, as she says, “the idea that every woman has the maiden, the mother, the crone inside her at all times. And that I’m starting to feel like I have the wisdom of… life. That I can pass it on. That’s a really powerful feeling. It feels like it all led to this amazing shadow woman, this fantastic witch.”
Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Photo Editor: Jessica Hober; Talent Booker: Patty Adams Martinez; Hair: Marilee Albin at Prtnrs; Makeup: Jo Strettell at Walter Schupfer Management with Hourglass Cosmetics; Manicure: Stephanie Stone at Forward Artists; Fashion Assistants: Jena Beck, Tawnee Clifton; On-Set Assistant: Gillian Hormel; Cat: Watson at Hollywood Animals
