There is already a great theory about the significance of the commercial actors within the reality of WandaVision: that they probably only exist within Wanda’s mind, because the sitcom world is some kind of projection or simulation or mind-prison for the powerful psychic. Under this theory, the characters themselves are drawn from a very painful memory in Wanda’s tragic backstory.
“Call me crazy, I think the people in the commercials are Wanda and Pietro’s parents,” writes Reddit user thatonekidemmet in a discussion thread about WandaVision on the Marvel Studios subreddit. (The quote has been edited for grammar.) “Makes sense they’d be the same people in each episode, and linked to her trauma. As far as I know they’ve never been shown before.”
As the story goes, Wanda and Pietro’s parents died horrifically when the twins were 10; a mortar round hit the Sokovian family’s apartment building, killing the parents and forcing the children to take cover under a bed. While they hid, terrified, in the rubble of their home, a second mortar shell hit the building and landed a few feet in front of them but didn’t explode. So they hid there, staring at the explosive and its “Stark Industries” logo, for two days, waiting for it to go off and kill them. It didn’t, and at that point they vowed to get revenge on Tony Stark, whom they blamed for their parents’ death. Their anger led them to volunteer for HYDRA’s experiments, bringing them in contract with Strucker; his experiments gave them their respective abilities and eventually led Wanda to her current predicament.
The commercials could very well be psychological manifestations of Wanda’s memories, and the actors in them might be avatars of her formative trauma. Or they might not be! It’s too early to say for sure. More will be revealed as WandaVision progresses.
