The 2025 Tony Awards ceremony, which took place on June 8, was not just about honoring the best of Broadway. It also turned into a setting for a quiet but much-awaited clash. The focus, however, was not only on the nominees and winners but also on a growing controversy involving longtime actress Patti LuPone and her very public dispute with fellow Broadway stars Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis.

According to the NY Post, this building tension reached a peak in a memorable moment when Oprah Winfrey, while presenting an award, seemed to gently criticize LuPone, adding an unexpected twist to the already glamorous event. The drama started in May 2025 when LuPone strongly attacked McDonald and Lewis in an interview with The New Yorker. She called McDonald “not a friend” and directed especially harsh words at Lewis, using offensive and disrespectful language, per Page Six.

The interview, which suggested long held bitterness and personal conflicts within the Broadway world, was met with quick and widespread anger. Lupone isn’t a stranger to controversial statements. LuPone’s remarks were viewed not only as personally hurtful but also as a sign of bigger issues like misogyny and racial bias in the industry.

Oprah gets on LuPone over past remarks

The reaction was fast and strong. More than 500 Broadway professionals signed an open letter criticizing LuPone’s behavior, pointing out the insulting and disrespectful nature of her comments and calling attention to the deeper problems in the Broadway community that let such behavior continue. The letter stressed the importance of building a respectful and welcoming environment for all performers, no matter their experience or status.

It directly addressed how deeply hurtful LuPone’s words were and emphasized the need for responsibility and change in the industry. Facing heavy criticism, LuPone posted a public apology on Instagram, itting how serious her words were and saying she regretted her actions. She said her comments were “demeaning and disrespectful” and that she wanted to personally apologize to both McDonald and Lewis.

While many saw her apology as a necessary step, it did not completely undo the harm caused by her earlier statements. Audra McDonald, for her part, spoke about the controversy in an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings. She said she was surprised by LuPone’s claims of a disagreement, explaining that she had not seen LuPone in more than ten years and was not aware of any major problems between them.

Against this backdrop, Oprah Winfrey stepped onto the Tony Awards stage to present the award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. While introducing the nominees, a category that included McDonald, Winfrey made a pointed remark about their work, saying it had “sparked lively conversations among theater fans.” She then paused, giving a meaningful look to the audience, which burst into laughter, before adding, “Lotta talking going on!”

The comment, which seemed to lightly reflect the ongoing controversy around LuPone’s interview, was quickly seen by many as a clear reference to the situation. Adding to the speculation was the fact that Winfrey’s phrase, “Lotta talking going on,” was a direct line from Beyoncé’s song “American Requiem.” This intentional seeming reference made it even more likely that Winfrey’s words were a quiet but effective criticism of LuPone’s behavior.

Till a few days ago, Patti LuPone was a Broadway legend. But now, she has made the entire Broadway community her enemy.

Recently, LuPone made several controversial remarks about fellow theater veterans Kecia Lewis and Audra McDonald in a New Yorker interview. While denoted Lewis as a “bitch” and questioned her status as a Broadway veteran, she outright dismissed McDonald as “not a friend” and refused to comment on her performance in Gypsy, a role LuPone herself once played.

If she thought the two theater artists, or well, the rest of the community, would take the insults lying down, she was wrong.

These comments sparked widespread condemnation from the theater community. Over 500 Broadway artists – including Tony winners James Monroe Iglehart and Maleah Joi Moon – signed an open letter denouncing the Marvel actor as a “bully” and calling out her “degrading,” “misogynistic,” and “racially insensitive” remarks. The letter called for ability for her “deeply inappropriate and unacceptable public comments about two of Broadway’s most respected and beloved artists,” since it exhibits “a blatant act of racialized disrespect.”

“It constitutes bullying. It constitutes harassment. It is emblematic of the microaggressions and abuse that people in this industry have endured for far too long, too often without consequence.”

The letter asserted that such insults have become a “pattern” for those who are powerful or popular, as there has been “a persistent failure” to hold such individuals “able for violent, disrespectful, or harmful behavior.”

LuPone’s comments were a wake-up call as the community has vowed to no longer tolerate “the normalization of harm in an industry that too often protects prestige over people.”

What is the community’s demand, and what has LuPone said in response?

The demand is simple – organizations like the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League should bar LuPone from attending the Tony Awards unless the 76-year-old completes anti-bias or restorative justice programs. 

In response to the letter, its demands, and the widespread backlash she continues to face, LuPone has issued a public apology, expressing deep regret for her comments and acknowledging that they were demeaning and disrespectful. Her solution? She is committed to making amends and plans to personally apologize to Lweis and McDonald.

But what the letter expects her to do to prove she is truly apologetic and ready to change is to go through “anti-bias or restorative justice programs,” wherein she will learn to recognize and correct her harmful bias and make amends, but in a meaningful way.

It remains to be seen whether it would be too much work for LuPone to fix her ways, especially since this is hardly the first time she has made biting remarks about fellow artists. The only difference is that this time she is being held able.

We just entered a brand new year, but it remains to be seen if Marvel Studios is going to embrace a brave new world or double down on the old habits that have dampened its more recent projects. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will be giving us a first taste of 2025 Marvel tomorrow, but one luminous newcomer to the mainline franchise has assured us that, going forward, the studio is wise enough to allow finished stories to stay finished.

Speaking recently to The Wrap, Patti LuPone — the musical theater extraordinaire who played Lilia Calderu in Disney Plus’ Agatha All Along — revealed that the pagan-drenched WandaVision spinoff won’t be returning for a second season, noting how showrunner Jac Schaeffer took the possibility off the table from the jump.

There won’t be one. Jac Schaeffer, the creator, came into my trailer and she said, ‘Patti, I’m just here to tell you that Lilia’s going to die,’ and I went, ‘But I wanted a second season.’ [Schaffer] said, ‘I don’t do second seasons.’ She said, ‘They wanted me to do a second season of WandaVision and I didn’t.’ She said, ‘There’s too much to write,’ so she does one-offs and I’m really hoping and praying that someday I get to work with her again because she’s magic.

Say what you will about Agatha All Along (I’ve said plenty myself), but creatives like Schaeffer are precisely the assets that Marvel Studios need to lean on if it wants to garner any sort of real respect from its audiences (which is very different from engagement).

Schaeffer’s WandaVision remains one of the diamonds of the MCU’s television efforts, due in no small part to Schaeffer knowing that its power laid in the specific story it was trying to tell, rather than how efficiently it promised something else down the line. Everyone was so hung up on the lack of a Mephisto reveal, but WandaVision soared because of its intelligent, meta-fictional tackling of grief.

Similarly, the Wiccan reveal in Agatha All Along was nice, but it didn’t come close to topping Schaeffer’s remarkably resonant approach to establishing his queerness — an aspect that’s been core to the character ever since he first turned up in the comics two decades ago.

All of this boils down to Schaeffer understanding that good stories have nothing to do with sensational reveals or any sort of brand presence, and it’s perhaps because of this that her instincts seemed so at odds with what Marvel Studios — who have only gotten more notorious for market-driven storytelling as the years go on — wanted out of Agatha All Along.

Indeed, the two-episode premier held far more narrative power then a fair chunk of the show’s midsection, which regrettably devolved into vibes and set pieces rather than prioritizing a value-driven identity or firming up character arcs and dynamics. The fate suffered by the third act of so many MCU films — in which a massive CGI minion battle is haphazardly inserted into the proceedings — isn’t terribly different.

Mileage may have varied with Agatha All Along, but it’s nearly indisputable that Schaeffer is a boon for Marvel Studios, and if it’s wise enough to rope her back into more projects, it should go the extra mile and write her a blank creative freedom check.

The best thing Marvel has put their money on in recent years, Agatha All Along has concluded its nine-episode spellbinding journey with a bang on Oct. 30. But just when we thought it was time to hang up our witch hats, Patti LuPone gave us a reason to rewatch the series.

In a video shared by Marvel Studios on X, LuPone, who plays the 450-year-old Sicilian witch Lilia Calderu in the miniseries, gave fans a hearty shout-out for ing Agatha’s coven and “for putting the song on billboard charts.” For those who don’t know, LuPone’s spooky anthem “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” has become a Billboard hit, giving the three-time Tony winner her first hit song on any of Billboard’s rankings (via Forbes). “That’s big!” the actress said. Further calling her experience “incredible,” she continued,

“It was an incredible journey with incredible artists and the production, the design side, the acting side, the creators, and the producers—it was an incredible experience that I am incredibly grateful for.”

The actress then dropped a fun behind-the-scenes tidbit—”I broke my wrist and we had to disguise it when we were shooting. So, who knows I was hiding my wrist in">the studio’s experiment to bring a side character like Agatha Harkness to the front has worked out for them. And the success of Agatha All Along suggests that Marvel’s future is more promising than ever.

In a way, the miniseries has restored fans’ faith in Marvel, setting a hopeful tone for the studio’s releases, Captain America: Brave New World and Daredevil: Born Again. However, these highly anticipated titles won’t hit screens until February and March next year. So, it might be a good idea to rewatch Agatha’s adventure and maybe even spot LuPone’s cleverly concealed broken wrist!

Thankfully for the entire population of planet Earth, Patti LuPone has been in the news a lot lately, courtesy of her scene-stealing role in Agatha All Along. 

While the actress and Broadway legend has been in the game for decades, all the renewed attention in the wake of her appearance in the Marvel TV series has seen a swathe of her iconic moments come back to light. In one recently resurfaced clip that’s currently doing the rounds online, LuPone does not mince words when discussing pop star Madonna, and honestly she left no crumbs.

Back in 2017, LuPone mentioned Madonna during an interview on Watch What Happens Live, in which she was asked whether she’d ever discussed sharing an acting role with the singer. For context, both LuPone and Madonna portrayed the character of Eva Perón, with the former playing the role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita and the latter doing the same in the subsequent movie adaption.

While answering the question on the Andy Cohen-hosted talk show, LuPone said she had never spoken to Madonna about their shared character, before launching into a tirade about the singer’s acting chops. Among other colorful descriptors, LuPone described Madonna’s performance of the Evita song “Buenos Aires” as a “piece of sh*t,” and said the singer’s acting is bad enough to make her a “movie killer.”

“She’s dead behind the eyes,” LuPone quipped of Madonna, “she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be in film or on stage.” The Broadway star conceded that while Madonna is an excellent musician and a “wonderful performer for what she does, she is not an actor.” While the age of time might’ve made LuPone soften on these views, she actually doubled-down on the opinion earlier this year. 

While appearing alongside her Agatha co-star Aubrey Plaza in an episode Hot Ones Versus, LuPone was asked whether she’d prefer to apologize to Madonna for her 2017 comments or eat a spicy wing. Of course, since she’s a legendary diva, LuPone gobbled down the wing to the bone, before reiterating her thoughts on musicians like Madonna venturing on to the big screen. “”There’s just some things some people can’t do,” LuPone told Plaza. 

“You just gotta it you can’t do it, that’s all,” she added. This sentiment, as LuPone went on to explain, extends to reality tv star-turned actress Kim Kardashian, whom LuPone lumped in with Madonna as a star whose talents are best displayed away from acting roles. 

“Like f**king Kim Kardashian,” LuPone explained, “can we go there? Or shall I eat another wing">appeared as a somewhat major character in 2023’s Swarm, the horror series created by Donald Glover. 

With all that, maybe LuPone will soon be eating her words (and not spicy wings) if she hypothetically shares a cinematic universe with Eilish. Heck, given Marvel’s multiverse-jumping antics of late, maybe there’s even a place for Madonna.

Another week, another spellbinding episode of Agatha All Along. Throughout the MCU’s latest offspring, each of the coven has gotten a chance to shine. 

While the show is named after Agatha, teamwork is the name of the game on the Witches’ Road. Last week we witnessed Teen’s (aka Billy Maximoff) backstory unfold, and Joe Locke was praised for his portrayal of the confused young boy. However, this week’s star is Patti LuPone, and she’s swiftly taken the cake for the best performance in Agatha All Along so far. But when you consider her portfolio, it all begins to make sense.

Patti LuPone absolutely stunned in Agatha All Along episode 7

Agatha All Along might still have two episodes to go, but fans are already declaring episode 7 the best episode of the season. Focused on Lilia’s trial, the episode finally explained all the weird behaviors she has been displaying all season, and gave Patti LuPone the stage to let her acting chops shine. 

The beauty of episode 7 was in the masterful writing and directing that Patti LuPone brought to life with her performance. Since episode 2, each episode of Agatha All Along has seen the witches of the coven dealing with trials specific to their fears and secrets. Since we met LuPone’s character, Lilia, it’s been clear that she has a bit of both. 

The episode also brilliantly played with the idea of non-linear storytelling, as it was revealed that Lilia experiences her life out of order. This explained the times she would randomly say some phrases, or have lapses in her memory. Flipping back and forth through time, we see Lilia come to with the nature of her powers, and her ultimate fate. LuPone’s acting throughout the episode, from dazed and absent, to insightful and manic, and now finally calmly accepting her fate, is worthy of tons of praise. 

So is LuPone the MCU’s breakout star? It sure looks like it. Online, fans haven’t stopped raving about her performance. One fan cheekily said, “Patti LuPone delivered a better performance in one episode than Robert Downey Jr. has ever given as Iron Man.” Many unanimously agreed that LuPone deserves an Emmy for her performance in the episode, and we couldn’t agree more. 

LuPone’s illustrious career

While Agatha All Along might be some people’s first introduction to Patti LuPone, she is a veteran on the screen and the stage. She made her Broadway debut in 1973, and has starred in dozens of productions in the decades since. She has won three Tony Awards, for her performances as Eva Peron in Evita, Rose in Gypsy, and one for her performance as Joanne in Steven Sondheim’s Company. LuPone is also a two-time Grammy Award winner, with vocals and flair that could bring any house down. She received the awards for her work on the album recording of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany. 

Outside of musical theatre, LuPone also has a stellar film and TV career. In the last few years, she has appeared in numerous roles that continue to showcase her undeniable versatility. From horror to comedy, LuPone it’s impossible for the veteran not to shine. If anything, her portrayal of Lilia is somewhat of a combination of all her finest moments throughout her career!

We’ll be just one week away from the series finale of Agatha All Along after this evening, and it’s hard to say precisely what lies ahead for Agatha, Billy, and the suspiciously absent Rio over these last three episodes.

You would, of course, be forgiven for being just as foggy about what’s already happened. After all, one of the show’s main cast , Patti LuPone, couldn’t a key piece of MCU lore that also happened to be their character’s most significant impact on this canon thus far.

Speaking recently to Entertainment Weekly, LuPone revealed that the wig and prop masters of her current Broadway show, The Roommate, came up to her and began geeking out over the reveal that Lilia, her Agatha All Along character, was the one responsible for putting the sigil on Teen. Only in that moment did LuPone that she did, in fact, do that.

The wig master and prop master came up to me individually and went, ‘You put the sigil on Teen!’ I totally forgot. I went, ‘Oh, right! I did.’

Indeed, episode six of Agatha All Along, “Familiar by Thy Side,” revealed that Lilia was working as a hired psychic for William Kaplan’s Bar Mitzvah (prior to him gaining the soul of Billy Maximoff, which brings him back to life after a car crash), which is how she wound up reading his palm, and subsequently led her to placing the sigil on him as protection. The sigil prevented any witch from ing or learning his identity, and given LuPone’s memory lapse, suffice to say it was quite effective.

Of course, the sigil is only Lilia’s biggest contribution so far. LuPone also revealed in the interview that the episode seven will see Lilia take the spotlight for the divination trial. As it turns out, Billy’s attack on the witches in the fifth episode didn’t lead to Lilia’s and Jennifer’s demise after all.

Jac is so clever in how she can lay in the puzzle and then resolve it. I didn’t connect the dots when I first read all of the episodes. In seven, as Lilia’s powers are awakening, she’s tying up all of these events that we’ve seen in the previous episodes. There’s an explanation to it.

By the sounds of things, then, episode seven is going to be a key narrative crux for the whole show, and we’d be wise to expect an influx of revelations by the episode’s end. But then again, we should have expected that anyway; we mustn’t forget that this is effectively the penultimate Agatha All Along episode, as the remaining two will be dropped together to mark the show’s finale. And given how little has actually occurred in a narrative sense thus far, it’s really no surprise that episode seven is being touted as revelation-heavy by LuPone.

For now, we know that the sigil has officially been broken, that Agatha is fully aware of Billy’s goal of seeking out his twin brother Tommy, and that Billy and Agatha’s alliance is a reluctant one, as neither party has made their animosity towards the other a secret. Dramatic tension, do your stuff (hopefully)!

Agatha All Along is now streaming on Disney Plus, with new episodes releasing every Wednesday until the two-episode finale on Oct. 30.

Two of 2024’s biggest pop culture releases have been a pair of Marvel Cinematic Universe projects — one on the big screen and another on the small screen. One of which, of course, is the cinematic goliath that is Deadpool & Wolverine, and the other is the recently released enchanting Disney Plus series Agatha All Along.

Now, the likelihood of the characters from those two projects ever meeting in the MCU is slim — there are far more relevant and pressing issues and stories for them all to concern themselves with. Agatha Harkness has some longstanding issues with Wanda Maximoff that could take years to resolve, and Deadpool and Wolverine have their own stuff going on in an entirely different universe.

That said, don’t rule it out because Harkness has actually encountered both Deadpool and Wolverine multiple times in Marvel’s comic books (she forced Wolverine to fight Spider-Man in the Amazon rainforest and Deadpool to fight Venom at an amusement park, for instance). It’s not as though the characters are so far removed from each other that interacting is impossible — especially given the now multiversal nature of the MCU.

In fact, one member of the Agatha All Along cast is already stirring up some beef with a Deadpool & Wolverine star — and it’s a contest we’d love to see play out on screen. So which cast member is it, and which A-lister do they want to fight?

Patti LuPone wants to fight Ryan Reynolds

In a red (or, should we say, suitably purple) carpet interview with Variety at the premiere of Agatha All Along, Patti LuPone, who plays the 450-year-old Sicilian witch Lilia Calderu in the show, spoke candidly about her lack of knowledge about the MCU.

After telling the interviewer she knew “Nothing” about the franchise, she was asked which character from the Marvel universe she’d like to fight. She ummed and ahhed, unsure which characters were part of the Marvel universe, before asking if Deadpool fit the bill (“Is Deadpool, are they Marvel">Entertainment Weekly, she once ate a “death wing,” the spiciest offering on Watch What Happens Live, rather than apologize to Madonna for calling her a “movie killer” who “can’t act her way out of a paper bag”). Reynolds would do well to stay out of her way.

Regardless, a potential meeting between Deadpool and Lilia Calderu in the MCU is undoubtedly intriguing. Maybe Marvel Studios should make that happen.

Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, the spin-off to Marvel’s hit 2021 series WandaVision, is finally taking shape. The show has reportedly wrapped production and is gearing up to release soon. Although much is being kept under wraps, most of the star-studded cast, as well as each of their characters, have been revealed.

The series, which will follow Kathryn Hahn’s character from WandaVision, Agatha Harkness, has changed titles a total of three times before landing on its present formation. It had previously gone by Agatha: House of Harkness and Agatha: Coven of Chaos.

The show finished filming in Atlanta on May 28. WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer returned to produce, direct, and write. Kathryn Hahn will lead the story as Agatha and has described the spin-off as being “very delicious.”

Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe met Agatha as housewife Agnes, but by the end of the Elizabeth Olsen vehicle, it’s revealed she infiltrated Westview, the town Wanda Maximoff was manipulating, and is actually an all-powerful witch. She’s been alive for hundreds of years and belonged to the Salem Coven before decimating it in 1693, during the Salem witch trials.

Unlike its other inhabitants, Agatha was free from Wanda’s spell the whole time, and had been messing with her plans and studying her magic, eager to discover its source and steal it. Agatha recognized Wanda’s insane powers as Chaos Magic, which can manipulate, warp, and reconstruct the fabric of existence and reality, and can only be used by one mythical entity: the Scarlet Witch.

By the end of WandaVision, after an intense fight between Agatha and Wanda, Wanda absorbs all of Agatha’s magic, effectively becoming the Scarlet Witch, and traps her in Westview to live out her days as Agnes.

Agatha’s popularity led Marvel Studios to give her her own separate series, but it’s unclear whether it will continue from the events of WandaVision, or take us back to her origin story as a part of the Salem Coven. It will most likely be both, as fans saw Wanda seemingly perish in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, possibly freeing Agatha from the spell the Scarlet Witch had put her under.

Emma Caulfield Ford as Sarah Proctor/Dottie Jones, Debra Jo Rupp as Sharon Davis/Mrs. Hart, and more WandaVision returnees

Fellow WandaVision star Emma Caulfield confirmed her presence in Darkhold Diaries a while back. She will be reprising her role as Westview resident, Dottie Jones, whose real identity outside Wanda’s spell is Sarah Proctor. Also returning from the Westview populace is Mrs. Hart aka Sharon Davis, the sweet wife of Vision’s boss Arthur Hart.

ing the two ladies are Kate Forbes as Agatha’s mother Evanora Harkness, David Lengel as Sarah/Dottie’s husband Harold Proctor/Phil Jones, Amos Glick as the mailman Dennis, David Payton as Wanda and Vision’s neighbor John Collins/Herb, and Brian Brightman as Sheriff Miller. Their participation in the show likely points toward a portion of the story occurring in the present time, following the events of WandaVision.

Joe Locke

Heartstopper‘s rising star Joe Locke was announced as part of Agatha: Darkhold Diaries in November 2022. His role was not disclosed, but in true Marvel fashion, fans have been running wild with theories, the most popular of which is that he’ll be playing a grown-up version of Billy Maximoff, aka Wiccan, one of Wanda’s super-powered twins. Julian Hilliard, the actor who plays young Billy in both WandaVision and Doctor Strange 2, also pretty much confirmed this theory in a cheeky tweet.

Despite no direct correlation, this casting does make sense, seeing as Locke rose to fame playing gay teenager Charlie Spring on Netflix’s Heartstopper, and Wiccan is one of Marvel Comics’ most prolific gay characters. Co-star Patti LuPone described the young actor’s character, however, as a “familiar” — which in Western mythology is usually a small animal that serves as a servant to a witch. Locke has said his time on set was “very full on, very physical, very emotional.”

Aubrey Plaza

The most talked about casting in Darkhold Diaries has been Parks and Rec alumni Aubrey Plaza. Her role is also undisclosed as of yet, so We Got This Covered took the time to explore some of the best options for the actress’s introduction in the MCU. Fans, of course, are mostly hoping she will play a sexy evil witch, which Plaza would knock out of the park.

Rumors and unconfirmed scoops indicate the acclaimed White Lotus thespian will be playing an original character who is the show’s main villain and a former lover of Agatha’s. Working with Hahn was one of the main motivators to get Plaza to the MCU — the two had shared the screen before, on Parks and Rec, and remained friends since. For Plaza, Darkhold Diaries is “the most elevated Marvel material that’s out there.”

Patti LuPone

Broadway legend Patti LuPone’s inclusion in the Agatha: Darkhold Diaries cast widely increases its chances of becoming one of the most iconic in the MCU. The performer, not used to the top-level secrecy of the Marvel world, has given fans the clearest image of the show yet.

LuPone spilled the beans on her character, Lilia Calderu, as a “450-year-old Sicilian witch whose power is divination and whose trial is tarot.” Calderu is a part of Marvel Comics, making her debut in 1973 as a powerful sorceress and keeper of the Book of Cagliostro.

Ali Ahn, Maria Dizzia, and Sasheer Zamata

Billions‘ Ali Ahn and Orange is the New Black‘s Maria Dizzia are both reportedly ing the show as witches.

Sasheer Zamata will play Jennifer Kale, who is also a witch in the comics, despite the comedian confirming the ties to the source material will be minimal. “The way we formed this character is very different from what I think people expect,” Zamata told Mashable. This particular casting leads us to believe that Darkhold Diaries will be leaning into a comedic tone — a genre in which Kathryn Hahn, Plaza, and LuPone all excel. Zamata’s experience on Saturday Night Live will be a fitting addition. She’s called the opportunity “a dream.”

Miles Gutierrez-Riley and Okwui Okpokwasili

Rounding out the Darkhold Diaries cast are The Wilds‘ Miles Gutierrez-Riley and dancer/performer Okwui Okpokwasili, The Hollywood Reporter informs. While there’s no information yet about who either actor could be playing, Gutierrez-Riley’s participation has attracted the most gossip. Some reports say he’s playing Teddy Altman, AKA Hulkling, Billy’s boyfriend and a member of the Young Avengers, others say he’ll be bringing a whole new original character to the MCU. Nothing has been confirmed.

Eric André (rumored)

Another spectacular addition to Darkhold Diaries‘ cast would be comedian Eric André, who has been rumored to be ing the cast. André hosted his own, highly popular talk show for ten years, and is one of Hollywood’s most coveted comics.

If his casting were to be confirmed, it would make Darkhold Diaries positively refreshing, and a new look for Marvel. This cast would deliver the most brilliant sitcom type of story, which gets even better when you consider the fact that most of them are witches.

Considering her fan-favorite status, everyone is still hoping Elizabeth Olsen will at least make a cameo in Darkhold Diaries. The Scarlet Witch actress has previously remarked that she “would love to pop up” in the series and never leave Kathryn Hahn’s side again.

Agatha: Darkhold Diaries anticipated release date

Although it was initially set to hit all of our screens in the fall of 2023, Agatha: Darkhold Diaries was pushed back to late 2024 amid a mass calendar shuffle at Disney that included shows like What If… season 2 and Echo. As a result of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, as well as the studio’s promise to space out its TV offerings, Darkhold Diaries will now debut a full three years after it was initially announced.

According to the U.S. Copyright Office (as discovered by fan Scarlet Witch Updates) Darkhold Diaires has been given a projected release date of Sept. 19, 2024. Marvel has not confirmed this yet, and it’s possible reshoots and necessary edits could cause the date to fluctuate. However, like Loki season 2, Darkhold Diaries‘ updated release date falls on a Thursday instead of a Friday or even a Wednesday, as has been the case with previous Marvel Disney Plus shows. For that reason, Sept. 19 feels as close to a final release date as we’ve ever gotten.

This will allow Marvel to carry on its budding annual tradition of airing spooky-ish shows in time for Halloween. To compensate for the prolonged wait, Agatha: Darkhold Diaries will be 9 episodes long — 3 more than the usual Marvel Disney Plus format.

The widely acclaimed Marvel television show WandaVision not only broke ground but also paved the way for the MCU to dash full-steam ahead into its serialized content on Disney Plus. It is largely considered the best MCU television show to date (at least by this writer), and in a matter of months, its spin-off Agatha: Coven of Chaos will gun for that pristine title when it airs to the masses early next year.

While much about the spinoff is unknown — except that it will star Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness — we now know that Patti LuPone will play the 450-year-old Sicilian witch Lilia Calderu and that she and Hahn are part of a coven that presumably includes actress Aubrey Plaza and Heartstopper actor Joe Locke. 

Locke’s involvement with the show has been kept frustratingly (and excitingly) under wraps. We still don’t know whether he will play Wanda’s son Billy Maximoff, aka Wiccan or a Familiar, which LuPone alluded to when she spilled the beans on The View. What we do know, though, is that Coven of Chaos will likely become just as much a hit with the LGBTQ+ community as its predecessor, at least according to Locke. 

When speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Locke, who treaded far more delicately than LuPone lest he also get reprimanded by Marvel, revealed that Coven of Chaos will lean into the campiness that made WandaVision such a surprise hit with the LGBTQ+ community. Regarding WandaVision, he said: 

“The show is about misunderstood people and people who are alienated by their society for reasons that they can’t control. I think that resonates a lot with the queer community.”

The campiness of Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) channeling magic into different decades of TV sitcoms will be just as prevalent in Coven of Chaos, so says Locke (sans the sitcom aspect, of course). 

“I think there’ll be some camp.”

Because Coven of Chaos has been billed as a dark comedy and stars three exceedingly talented actresses (Hahn, LuPone, and Plaza) who are capable of turning drama into humor at the drop of a hat, it makes perfect sense that the show would appeal to the same audiences who loved WandaVision. 

Personally, Coven of Chaos is my most-anticipated MCU Disney Plus show to date. Yes, even over Secret Invasion and Loki season two. The idea that Marvel just might give us the perfect balance of magic, storytelling, and LGTBQ+ representation (fingers crossed for Locke as Wiccan), I think there’s no reason not to expect this one to live up to WandaVision. Especially since it might even introduce a character more powerful than Wanda. 

There are still several more months of waiting to go until Coven of Chaos hits Disney Plus, but thanks to LuPone’s loose lips we at least know it will be sometime in the early months of 2024.

Patti LuPone has itted to being unfamiliar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite spilling multiple secrets regarding her role in the series Agatha: Coven of Chaos.

Earlier this month, LuPone defied the comic book studio’s anti-spoiler apparatus by revealing that the WandaVision spin-off will be a musical, with musical numbers written by Kristen and Bobby Lopez of Frozen fame. While the spoiler-frenzy might indicate that LuPone is well-versed in Marvel happenings, the actress recently confessed to being largely unaware of the studio prior to being cast as Lili Calderu. “I’m still not familiar with it,” LuPone told Entertainment Weekly, “I had to watch WandaVision twice to figure it out.”

The actress shared a similar sentiment in her discussion previously, confessing that she “didn’t know there were witches” in the MCU and “didn’t know anything about the Marvel world.” After some research into the character, she described Lili Calderu as “a 450-year-old Sicilian witch whose power is divination and whose trial is tarot.” The actress went on to reveal that filming of Agatha: Coven of Chaos hadn’t wrapped yet, before hinting at a release date sometime in 2024.

For her part, Hahn provided her own, somewhat vague update about the series earlier this month, saying that “all bets are off”. Alongside LuPone, Hahn, Plaza and Locke, the cast of Agatha: Coven of Chaos will also include Asif Ali, who portrayed Abilash Tandon/Norm in WandaVision.        

It seems like Marvel’s anti-spoiler apparatus ain’t got nothing on Patti LuPone, because she has officially ed Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland on the list of the franchise’s most unfailing informers. After spilling the tea on her Agatha: Coven of Chaos character, her powers, and her involvement in the show, as well as Aubrey Plaza and Joe Locke’s, the screen and Broadway legend has just let us all in on a few more of the WandaVision spin-off’s secrets.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about her new Ari Aster-directed movie Beau is Afraid, LuPone confirmed Coven of Chaos is a musical — which makes sense, after all, since the original Evita is in it. The coven, of which LuPone, leading lady Kathryn Hahn, Plaza, and Locke are , will be bursting into song every now and again in the Marvel project, making it essentially the first Marvel musical.

“Our lead singer is Kathryn. I’m singing backup, and the songs have been written by Kristen and Bobby Lopez.”

Audiences will likely recognize Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robbert “Bobby” Lopez as the award-winning songwriting duo for other Disney IPs like the Frozen films, and Coco. They also wrote the now iconic “Agatha All Along” theme from WandaVision, whose huge popularity was one of the driving forces behind the Salem witch getting her own spin-off show.

“I said, ‘Listen, I don’t harmonize. I’ve always been a soprano. I’ve always been on the top line.’ But it’s just been great fun,” LuPone, who is usually the top-billing singer in any room she occupies, said of singing backup in Coven of Chaos. “There’s no CGI either. What I am seeing on this show is craft,” she added.

The Tony, Grammy, and Olivier-winning actress and singer will play 450-year-old Sicilian witch Lilia Calderu. There is no defined release date for Agatha: Coven of Chaos yet, but it’s expected to hit Disney Plus in late 2023 or early 2024.