WandaVision: Who Plays Young Wanda & Pietro (& Their Parents)

WandaVision episode 8 took viewers back in time to the day when Wanda’s parents died, but who plays young Wanda, Pietro, and their parents? The end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga doesn’t mean the end of this universe, and the studio is all set to move forward with its highly-anticipated Phase 4, which will not only cover the movie side but also TV/streaming as there’s a long list of TV shows coming up and set to stream exclusively on Disney+.

Kicking off this new era in the MCU is WandaVision, a TV show centered on Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany). Set after the events of Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision follows the aforementioned characters as they live an idyllic suburban life in the town of Westview, New Jersey. However, their life is not as perfect as it seems, and there’s something obscure behind everything happening at Westview, and Wanda isn’t in full control of it and its residents. Episode 7 revealed the identity of the series’ real villain – Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), who is actually Agatha Harkness – and the following episode took the audience back in time to witness some of the events that shaped Wanda and those that drove her to build this fake reality.

The first scenario Agatha and Wanda visited was the night Wanda’s parents died. The scene showed the young versions of Wanda and her twin brother Pietro and the first look at their parents, Iryna and Olek Maximoff, along with a bit of the dynamic between the four of them. One night, the Maximoffs were enjoying some family time watching their favorite sitcoms when a mortar shell hit their apartment building. Wanda and Pietro’s parents died instantly, and the twins took cover as they waited for a second shell to explode. The actors who played Iryna and Olek Maximoff are Ilana Kohanchi and Daniyar, respectively, and those who played the young versions of Wanda and Pietro are Michaela Russell and Gabriel Gurevich.

Ilana Kohanchi is a Russian-American actress who has appeared in various projects in minor roles, though viewers might be able to recognize her from her roles as Lexi in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Natasha Averin in Kat Loves LA. Among her future projects is the drama movie Memoirs of a Fighter, alongside Eric Roberts and Tara Reid. Daniyar has also been part of various movies, short-films, and TV series in minor roles, and among his most recent roles are Sasha in the TV series Sweetbitter, Motya Morozov in The Blacklist, Lev in No Escape, and Sergei in The Laundromat.

The actress who plays young Wanda, Michaela Russell, is no stranger to the MCU but her first “role” in this universe is not what you think. Russell was a photo double for Abby Ryder Fortson (young Cassie Lang) and a stand-in for “young Evangeline Lilly” in Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was her first “role” in the film industry. After that, she appeared in the TV movies Love to the Rescue and Two Turtle Doves, as well as in the TV series Amazing Stories. Young Pietro, Gabriel Gurevich, made his debut in the TV series The Americans, where he played six-year-old and seven-year-old Philip, after which he appeared in the TV shows Great Performances at the Met, High Maintenance, and Supergirl, where he played Mikhail in the episode “The House of L”. Whether they will all appear again in the final episode of WandaVision or not remains to be seen, but their brief appearance in episode 8 will be enough to give their careers a push.

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Adrienne Tyler
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Adrienne Tyler is a features writer for Screen Rant. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Prior to Screen Rant, she wrote for Pop Wrapped, 4 Your Excitement (4YE), and D20Crit, where she was also a regular guest at Netfreaks podcast. She was also a contributor for FanSided’s BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Adrienne is very into films and she enjoys a bit of everything: from superhero films to heartbreaking dramas, to low-budget horror films. Every time she manages to commit to a TV show without getting bored, an angel gets its wings.

When she’s not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs!), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. Breakfast food is life and coffee is what makes the world go round.

Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. It was great.

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