WANDAVISION Exclusive: Debra Jo Rupp Talks Returning To The Past Two Decades After THAT '70s SHOW

Before WandaVision ever came along, actress Debra Jo Rupp (Friends; The Ranch) famously played the matriarch of the Forman family in Fox's beloved late '90s/early '00s comedy series That '70s Show, where she starred opposite Kurtwood Smith (The Ranch; RoboCop) and Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3; Black Mirror), amongst others, as arguably one of the best TV moms of our generation.

It looks like her experience on that series amply prepared her to tackle the sitcom genre again, but this time, set within the world of high-profile Marvel superheroes.

WANDAVISION Exclusive: Debra Jo Rupp On That Big "Uh Oh" Moment In The Premiere & Working With Marvel Studios

With her playing a character from the '50s in her first installment, she did a deep dive into shows from that era, and particularly observed a few actresses and how they performed in black-and-white, which sounds like a completely unique experience compared to That '70s Show.

"I looked at a lot of video that I could find online that was black-and-white because black-and-white is different - even the makeup they wore is different from what we wear, in color, now, but black-and-white... I just remember thinking, I have so much make up and it looks perfectly normal on camera. I did look at a lot of the old black-and-white stuff and just to see what women's places were then. Women were very different in the '50s than they are now or even in the '70s. That's usually my - I take that cue and build on that."

While Elizabeth Olsen has said she looked at performers like Lucille Ball as well as her own sisters Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen for future episodes, Jo Rupp didn't remember zeroing in on any one specific actress, though she did observe the kind of roles typical female characters played back then in the '50s and '60s.

"No, I remember that there was one video that I watched and I don't even remember what TV show it was, but it was black-and-white - because a lot of that in the '50s was the boss comes to dinner. That was like a standard and I remember watching one and the wife - there was the wife - and she was very stern and tight and pulled in, and I did watch that and I thought, 'Well, I'm not going to do that.' It's not who I am, that's not going to happen.

I have always enjoyed - I really like Vivian Vance on I Love Lucy and Rose Marie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. I really liked her too, so I think there was some of her in there. I don't know, I took from a whole bunch of different places."

Speaking of That '70s Show, with the 25th Anniversary coming up in 2023, we wanted to see if Rupp had heard any plans about a possible reunion.

 "I didn't even know that, so no. (*laughs*) Not right now," she said, but seemed very open to the idea of reuniting with her former castmates if/when the time comes. "But this business changes very quickly, you just never know what could happen."

Check out our full video interview - which contains potential minor SPOILERS - with actress Debra Jo Rupp below! 

Welcome to WandaVision. Coming soon to Disney+. Marvel Studios' captivating new series "WandaVision" stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, and marks the first series from Marvel Studios streaming exclusively on Disney+. The series is a blend of classic television and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in which Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives—begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.