Jenna Ortega reveals that she was so protective of her role as Wednesday Addams from Netflix hit series Wednesday that the actress went to extreme lengths to ensure the character was being portrayed correctly.
The 20-year-old shared this admission during a recent discussion with Dax Shepard and his co-host Monica Padman on the Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard podcast. In the interview, Ortega disclosed that despite Wednesday being a show that deals with teen issues, she had to put her “foot down” on specific scenarios that the Addams daughter encounters as she attends a new school. The list ranged from her character’s outfit choices to her love triangle with Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White) and Bianca Barclay (Joy Sunday). Ortega said,
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on ‘Wednesday,’ because it’s so easy to fall into that category, especially with this type of [teen] show. Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all. Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘Oh my god, I love it! I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.'”
In addition to the other responses, Ortega also mentioned that while working on Wednesday, she would do things that she deemed “unprofessional,” like changing lines of dialogue, because there were various situations that she felt could make her character be seen in a different light than what was previously intended.
“There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines. The script supervisor thought I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”
Towards the end of the interview, Ortega gave insight into why she felt her actions for her character were valid. The Scream VI star expressed that the changes she implemented for Wednesday helped fans see the character for who they were, which is a teen dealing with life’s unpredictable events. Ortega said,
“I grew very, very protective of her, but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you. And Wednesday is a teenager. When you’re little and you say morbid, offensive stuff, it’s funny and endearing and, ‘Aww, you don’t know any better.’ But then you become a teenager, it’s, ‘Now you’re being nasty and you know it.’ There’s less excuse.”
Since Wednesday premiered on Netflix last year, the series broke records. As previously reported, the show has become the second most-viewed premiere on the streaming platform after receiving billions of minutes in watch time.
Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.