Jenna Ortega admitted to putting her foot down several times on the set of “Wednesday.”
Ortega, 20, recently revealed that many of the scripts made no sense to her character and she ended up changing the scripts without consulting the writers.
She said Podcast “Armchair Expert”. presenter and fellow actor Dax Shepard, 48, said that when she first signed up for the show she didn’t have all the scripts so she assumed the series would be “a lot darker” and didn’t know what the tone would be would be or score would sound.
But when she read the entire series, Ortega realized it was aimed at a younger audience.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put more foot on a set than on ‘Wednesday,'” she said. “Everything Wednesday does, everything I had to play, didn’t fit her character at all.”
Continuing to preview some of the unusual moments on the show, she revealed, “Are they in a love triangle?” It made no sense. There was a line about a dress she has to wear to a school dance and she’s like, ‘Oh my God, I love it. Ugh – I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ I had to go, ‘No.’
“There were times on that set when I even became almost unprofessional, in a way I was just starting to change lines,” Ortega admitted. “The script supervisor thought I was on to something and then I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d say, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to explain why I couldn’t do certain things.
The “Scream VI” star ultimately wanted her character to have more depth, and she became “very, very protective” of Wednesday’s role.
“You can’t lead a story and have an emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you. When you’re short and say really morbid, insulting things, it’s funny and endearing. But then you become a teenager and it’s nasty and you know it. There’s less of an excuse,” Ortega explained.
Now is ‘Wednesday’ Netflix‘s second-biggest English-language series of all time – but Ortega wasn’t very confident that the show would find an audience while she was shooting.
“I can’t look at my work, but I can go home from the set and say, ‘The scene we shot today felt good,'” Ortega said. “On ‘Wednesday,’ there wasn’t a scene on that show where I went home and thought, ‘OK, that should be good.'”
She also admitted that she doesn’t particularly want to be known for her role in the Addams family series.
“Now many people know me from [‘Wednesday’]. It’s not my proudest moment internally, which I think also adds an extra level of uncertainty and stress because it’s like now I’m finally getting these offers or these places that I want, but I don’t want to be specifically known for that,” she said.
Ortega, who is ELLE’s April 2023 cover startold the magazine she is “so afraid” of disappointing people and not living up to people’s expectations.
“I want to live up to people’s expectations, which is something I have to get over, but I’m also afraid that, I don’t know, maybe someone will get to know me too well and realize that I’m not all that,” she told ELLE .
While she said she sometimes feels disbelief when she’s complimented, she also allows the praise to encourage her to find her own voice in the industry.
“The kind words I hear said about me through other people are incredible to me. I feel like only the people in my life see me in a way that I don’t really see myself,” she shared.
Tim Burton, director and executive producer of “Wednesday,” told ELLE that Ortega has the main character “in her soul.”
“You have to ‘be’ a little Wednesday, and that’s Jenna,” Burton said. “Whether she likes it or not, she has that in her soul and as a person.”
“Wednesday” is currently streaming on Netflix and was recently renewed for a second season, with Ortega serving as an executive producer.
