TV & Movies
Jenna Ortega Reflects On Her Wednesday Writers Controversy
“That was really hard for me.”
In the fall of 2022, Wednesday star Jenna Ortega added her name to the list of actors who have given an iconic performance as the Addams family’s morbid and miserable daughter. Her dance scene alone was the subject of a thousand memes. However, Ortega caused a stir after she appeared to criticize the hit Netflix drama’s writing team — a controversy she’s now addressing.
Appearing on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast in 2023, Ortega said she “had to put [her] foot down” on the Wednesday set and “started changing lines” that she felt didn’t represent her character. She fought particularly hard against Wednesday’s love triangle with Tyler (Hunter Doohan) and Xavier (Percy Hynes White) because she felt it “made no sense” for the character.
“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,” she told Shepard.
More recently, the actor addressed her podcast comments in an interview with Vanity Fair, admitting that she “probably could have used [her] words better.” She continued, “I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better.”
Ortega’s remarks made headlines amid the Writers Guild of America strike, leading to backlash from both fans and those in the industry. In her Vanity Fair interview, the actor said the fallout “felt almost dystopian.”
“Everything that I said felt so magnified. I felt like a caricature of myself,” she continued. “You’re never going to please everybody, and as someone who naturally was a people pleaser, that was really hard for me to understand.”
Ortega also confessed to Vanity Fair that she “got sick” of herself at the peak of Wednesday’s success. “My face was everywhere … so it’s like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too,” she said.
Wednesday Season 2
The hit Netflix drama’s first season centers on Wednesday during her first year as a student at Nevermore Academy. There, she begins mastering her emerging psychic abilities and helps stop a killing spree in the local town. Along the way, she learns a little something about friendship and (ill-fated) romance.
Much to fans’ delight, Netflix confirmed that Wednesday had been renewed for Season 2 in January 2023. Production finally began in Dublin, Ireland in May 2024, bringing back Ortega and fellow Season 1 stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, and Isaac Ordonez, among others. The new season will also introduce a string of newbies, including Joanna Lumley, Steve Buscemi, Thandiwe Newton, Christopher Lloyd, and Billie Piper.
Ortega happens to be an executive producer on Season 2, so she may have more freedom than ever on the Wednesday set.
