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Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity, Netflix
Jess Hardiman
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity, Netflix
Jenna Ortega has revealed she had to change the script for hit Netflix series Wednesday, admitting she’s never ‘put her foot down’ more on a show than on the Tim Burton-directed comedy-horror.
Ortega’s titular character became an instant favourite with viewers when the programme premiered on the streaming site last November, proving so popular that it was renewed for a second season in January this year.
But according to the actor, things could have been pretty different – as she ended up changing dialogue without speaking to the film’s writers.
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In a recent episode of the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard, she said the original scripts made no sense to her as she read them from the perspective of Wednesday Addams.
She said: “When I read the entire series, I realized, ‘Oh, this is for younger audiences’.
“When I first signed onto the show, I didn’t have all the scripts. I thought it was going to be a lot darker. It wasn’t… I didn’t know what the tone was, or what the score would sound like.”
She continued: “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.
“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.
“The script supervisor thought I was going with something and then I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I’d have to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”
A bold move, for sure, but one that’s clearly paid off as it soon became Netflix’s second most-viewed show of all time, behind Stranger Things season four.
Ortega went on to say she felt 'very protective' over her character, adding: "You can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you. When you are little and say very morbid, offensive stuff, 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.”