Netflix’s Wednesday has become the streamer’s second-most-popular English-language series to date, with more than 1 billion hours viewed and a hotly anticipated second season on the way. It’s also made a star out of Jenna Ortega, who has earned both Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for her portrayal of the moody teenager with a macabre streak.
But according to the 20-year-old actor, she often had to fight for the show to depict its title character the way she believed Wednesday Addams should be portrayed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday,” Ortega, who stars in Scream VI and hosts Saturday Night Live on March 11, recently said on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all.”
She outlined some of her grievances, starting with the show’s emphasis on Wednesday’s romantic life. “Her being in a love triangle made no sense,” Ortega said. “There was a line about, like, a dress that she has to wear for a school dance, and she said, ‘Oh, my God, I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.’” Sometimes Ortega went even further: “There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines. The script supervisor thought that, like, I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers, and they would be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”
One major point of contention was Ortega’s iconic Wednesday dance scene, which was originally envisioned as a flash mob. “Initially, it was supposed to be a flash mob, and she was supposed to start dancing, and everyone was supposed to pick up on it and start dancing with her. And that, I vetoed, because why would she be okay with that?” the actor explained. “Well, I said, ‘Either cut it or have Wednesday knock someone out, and then it’s done.’”
Previously, Ortega said that she filmed the dance scene for the series, which was shot in Romania, with active symptoms of COVID. A spokesperson for MGM, the production company behind Wednesday, said in a statement to People that “strict COVID protocols were followed,” and “once the positive test was confirmed, production removed Jenna from set.”
Over the course of production on the eight-episode series, Ortega “grew very, very protective of” Wednesday Addams, she said. “You can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc, because then it’s boring and nobody likes you,” she continued, explaining that she took issue with some of the character’s more aggressive choices. “When you’re little and you say really morbid, offensive stuff, it’s funny and endearing and aw, you don’t know any better. But you become a teenager, and it’s oh, well now you’re being nasty and you know it. There’s less excuse.”
Ortega’s doubts about how the show would be perceived extended far beyond filming, she explained on the podcast. “On Wednesday, there was not a scene in that show that I went home and was like, Okay, that should be fine,” she said. Ortega apparently does not take comfort in knowing that she’s so closely associated with the series, either. “Now a lot of people know me from that. It’s not my proudest moment internally, which, I think, also adds an extra level of insecurity and stress,” Ortega said. “Because it’s like, no, I’m finally getting these offers to these places that I want, but I don’t want to be known specifically for that.”
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