Jenna Ortega on Backlash to ‘Wednesday’ Writers Comments: “Could Have Used My Words Better”
Jenna Ortega is saying she “could have used [her] words better” when she spoke about changing lines for her Wednesday character and questioning the writers’ intentions in a podcast appearance last year that sparked backlash.
Speaking to Vanity Fair for a cover story that posted online on Tuesday, Ortega said, “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. 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.”
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The actress previously told Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast that she got “unprofessional” when trying to make Wednesday Addams feel more authentic to her.
“There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional, in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” she said in part. “The script supervisor thought that 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. I grew very, very protective of [Wednesday], but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”
With hindsight, she told Vanity Fair, the protection she felt for her character also reflected her flexing her independence on set.
“Women have to be princesses,” she said. “They have to be elegant and classy and so kind and … then when they’re outspoken, they can’t be tamed and they’re a mess.”
The actress also spoke about her experience with her comments from Armchair Expert being picked up as a soundbite by various media outlets.
“Everything that I said felt so magnified. … It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself,” Ortega recalls of the backlash to her remarks that played out in the celebrity media. Her comments also became fodder for striking writers last year. The irony is the producer credit Ortega sought for the first season has been given to her for the second.
“I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge. … But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project,” she told Vanity Fair.
As for Tim Burton, he apparently has no regrets at all over Ortega and her outspokenness. “She’s very direct,” he told the magazine. “She’s very no-nonsense, and I find that very refreshing and beautiful and artistic … I saw, from day one, she’s very aware. She’s more aware, sometimes, than I am.”
Ortega previously spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about wanting to advocate for herself on the Netflix series.
“Because I’m someone who is very opinionated or because I know what it’s like to be a people-pleaser in this industry, and I know how unhappy or how frustrating it’s been in the past, when I went into Wednesday I really put my foot down and made it clear that everything that I had to say mattered and was heard,” she said on the 2023 Comedy Actress Roundtable as she was getting ready to assume her producer role on season two. “And as the show went on, we all got a better feel for one another, and it’s become a really collaborative experience, and I feel really lucky to be able to be in the room early next season and be talking about scripts and giving notes.”
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