In an interview, Jenna Ortega admitted that she changed Wednesday’s dialogue from what was scripted to stay true to the character.
Wednesday was a massive hit on Netflix due in large part to Jenna Ortega’s deadpan portrayal of the iconic character Wednesday Addams.
The mixture of Wednesday’s macabre obsessions, along with Ortega’s unnerving acting, were aided by some incredibly dark lines that were wonderfully played for laughs.
Although the show was praised for those witty, quippy lines for Wednesday, the actress for the titular character revealed they didn’t all come from the script.
Jenna Ortega admits to changing Wednesday’s dialogue
In a recent interview with Variety, Ortega spoke about how she embraced the character of Wednesday Addams, even becoming protective of her at times.
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“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on ‘Wednesday,'” Ortega said. And that meant defying some of the writers.
“Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all. Her being in a love triangle? It made no sense. There was a line about a dress she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘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 where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines.”
Ortega also admitted in the interview that when she signed onto the project she believed the show would be darker and more adult than how it became in later scripts. As a result, she fought hard to make sure that Wednesday had more depth than was previously written.
And Ortega’s persistence clearly paid off, given the acclaim Wednesday has received and the fact that it became one of the most-watched shows of all time on Netflix.
