Rachel McAdams expected the multiverse to be a little madder in Doctor Strange

McAdams thought she would be playing more versions of herself in the sequel film

By Matt Schimkowitz | May 5, 2022 | 5:50pm

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Rachel McAdams expected the multiverse to be a little madder in Doctor Strange

Rachel McAdams Photo: Frazer Harrison

It’s a big weekend for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Doctor Strange returns with a new movie by director Sam Raimi, his first in nine miserable years. But even more importantly, in perhaps the biggest news to hit the MCU since someone decided that we had to show those Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies some respect, Rachel McAdams has come home.

Appearing for the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2016, McAdams reprises her role as fan-favorite Dr. Christine Palmers. While fans and action figure manufacturers alike have been demanding the return of Dr. Palmers, McAdams thought she was a one-and-done MCU veteran.

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Speaking to IndieWire, McAdams says she wasn’t expecting to return for the sequel. “I think there was a lot of script work being done, and then there was sort of a changing of the guard.” And even then, according to McAdams, it wasn’t certain. Even as rumors swirled about her return, she “was still in the dark, and then it was like, ‘Alright, I’m coming now, OK!”

Unfortunately, seeing as we get movies about 9,000 Spider-Men running around pointing at each other, McAdams rightly assumed she’d at least get to play three versions of Dr. Palmer in a movie about a friggin’ Multiverse Of Madness. Sadly, she was capped at two.

“It did change a little bit from what I was originally told, [which was] that it would be three different versions, and we wound up with two different versions in the end,” McAdams says. “But they said I’d be playing a very different version of the Christine Palmer I played in the first film, that I wasn’t an emergency room doctor, just a completely different person with a completely different life experience.” Very different is quite a stretch, but we’ll take as much McAdams as we can get.

Perhaps, Kevin Fiege thought movie theaters couldn’t handle the full-throated roar of a crowd experiencing that many Dr. Palmers. It’s a shame, though. We would’ve loved to see one of those viral videos of theaters going absolutely wild for every Dr. Palmer that enters the frame.