Jenna Ortega revisits the controversy surrounding her unpopular comments on Wednesday

Highlights

Lead actress Jenna Ortega reflects on controversial comments made in the first season while filming the highly anticipated second season.
Ortega admits to having behaved “unprofessionally” on set regarding the character description, which led to backlash and negative reactions from the public.
Despite previous missteps, Ortega’s changes to the script and his new role as producer promise a bigger, better and more macabre second season.

Wednesday is currently filming its highly anticipated second season, and lead actress Jenna Ortega recently took some time to reflect on one of her more controversial moments from the news cycle of the show’s first season.

Wednesday is one of the most successful series on Netflix and is based on the popular The Addams Family franchise to bring a more modern, narrative twist to the previous versions in films and television shows. The show, which debuted on the streamer, became an instant hit, with fans raving about lead actress Jenna Ortega’s perfect portrayal of Wednesday Addams. Although it was a huge success and cemented Ortega’s version of the title character in the public consciousness, the second season needs to fix some of the problems of the first.

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However, there was one problem from the first season of the series that had nothing to do with the plot. In an interview, Ortega admitted that there was “unprofessional” behavior on the set. Wednesdayparticularly in regards to her handling of the script for her character, describing how she had to rewrite parts of it in a way that many people at the time found objectionable. During an interview with Vanity Fair about the second season of Wednesday and the upcoming sequel film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ortega spoke about her retrospective thoughts on the matter and regretted the statements she had made.”I probably could have put all this into words better. I think I’m often a bit of a chatterbox.“, confessed the actress. “I think it was difficult because I felt like it probably would have been better received if I had presented the situation better.”

The comments certainly did not go down well and sparked a whole series of reactions and scathing replies from all sides.”Everything I said felt so exaggerated… It almost seemed dystopian”, she recalls the storm of negative publicity that followed. “I felt like a caricature of myself.” Ortega was heavily criticized during the writers’ strike for her Wednesday comments, with some going so far as to use them as templates for posters on the picket line. The behavior on set, which the actress attributed to her then-burgeoning protective instincts toward the iconic character she inherited, was as much cause for the backlash as the attitude attributed to the comments themselves.

As the interview notes elsewhere, the whole situation was something of an introduction to the nature of these types of comments and will help the young star grow as an actress. Ortega’s changes to the script were certainly the right move, and fans’ reception of the character has confirmed that. While this doesn’t excuse her admittedly unprofessional behavior, it should be taken into account when assessing her new role as a producer on the series. With the passionate star serving as both lead and producer, this can only mean that the character will be portrayed in an even more morbid and engaging way in season two. Although production began earlier this year, there is still no news on a release date for the upcoming season, hopefully indicating an emphasis on substance over speed when creating content for fans.

When the upcoming second season of Wednesday has already broken records with its budget and the scope of filming, there is no doubt that it will be a bigger and better installment than the first. Fans will have to wait patiently until the premiere of season two to see what deliciously macabre improvements and storylines it brings to the franchise.

Wednesday is available to stream on Netflix

Wednesday

3.0

Release date: 16 November 2022
Pour: Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Christina Ricci, Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday
Seasons: 1
History of: Charles Addams
Authors: Miles Millar, Alfred Gough
Franchise(s): The Addams Family
Directors: Tim Burton, James Marshall, Gandja Monteiro
Showrunner: Miles Millar, Alfred Gough