There’s something weirdly nostalgic about the titular character of “Wednesday.”
Overly independent, confident, and unapologetically dark, Jenna Ortega’s version of the character is more than just an older take on Christina Ricci’s surly, ’90s-era Wednesday Addams. She’s the embodiment of who an awful lot of moody teenage girls want to be (and anecdotally, as someone who was too young to fully partake in the grungy 2014 Tumblr aesthetic, she’s a welcomed return to the dark, gloomy vibes I always looked up to; I suspect a lot of other viewers in their early 20s are in the same boat).
Watching Ortega sleuth around Nevermore is almost freeing — it’s fun to live vicariously through fantastical characters, especially when they’re such uncanny representations of who you wanted to be — but it’s also easy to feel bad for Ortega. After all, she had massive shoes to fill. It’s enough to make anyone feel nervous.
Fortunately, the actor had an incredibly positive experience while playing “Wednesday.” In fact, in an interview with Netflix’s TUDUM, Ortega even revealed that the role was much more liberating than her previous work.
Permission to be honestNetflixAs it turns out, Wednesday and Jenna Ortega have a lot in common. Neither young woman is nearly as chipper as society might expect them to be, and as Ortega told TUDUM, her sarcastic, “very dry” sense of humor had been earning her comparisons to Wednesday Addams long before she was cast in the role.
Unfortunately though, when you’re living in the real world, it’s tough to possess Wednesday’s unwavering self-confidence — especially when all eyes seem to be on you. Ortega had previously told Vogue that, much like Wednesday, she prefers not to wear color. But while Wednesday doesn’t mind wearing an all-black dress to a dance when everyone else is dressed in white, Ortega will still occasionally wear relatively bright, conventional outfits “because I feel like I have to.”
Given how similar Wednesday is to Ortega, taking on the role gave the actor permission to express a side of herself that she might usually feel pressure to cover up. Ortega elaborated on the experience when speaking to TUDUM:
“It was a very freeing, gratifying experience, because you don’t have to care. If you’re in a bad mood, and you have a stink face, it doesn’t matter … [Wednesday] sticks to her guns, and she’s not out to please anybody. Which, as someone who used to be an immense people pleaser, I really respect.”
Incidentally, Christina Ricci also reported similar feelings of relief when speaking about her experience playing Wednesday Addams. Considering the fact that the most recent versions of Wednesday have been so much fun for viewers and the performers alike, it might not hurt to get some new, similar characters on-screen.
The role still came with challengesNetflixDespite having such a great time on set, Jenna Ortega still experienced some stress as a result of joining the creepy, kooky Addams family. Surprisingly though, most of it seemed to set in after filming on “Wednesday” had wrapped.
In a chat with Olivia Rodrigo for The Face, Ortega revealed that while “Wednesday” was shooting, she was constantly worried about being a knock-off of Christina Ricci’s Wednesday Addams. As a result, Ortega tried to think of different ways to make the role her own. However, the ideas didn’t stop once filming had wrapped up, leading to a cocktail of self-doubt:
“… I didn’t realize that so many people were going to care about the project. I feel like the nerves are coming back even more because I don’t know if I did a good job. I am in almost every scene. I feel like I’m still learning things about her every day –- I lay up all night staring at the ceiling like, I could have done this, why didn’t I do that? It’s kind of a nightmare.”
Unfortunately, self-doubt can be difficult to overcome, especially when your work is creative and highly visible. There’s certainly no shortage of it in the film industry — “Some Like it Hot” writers Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond had reservations about the film’s beloved final line (“Nobody’s perfect!”), and “Luca” director Enrico Casarosa has previously spoken about using the name “Bruno” to represent his own self-doubt (giving “Silenzio Bruno!” a whole new meaning that’s grounded in real-world frustration). If “Wednesday” gets renewed for a second season, hopefully the show’s success will allow Ortega to ignore any feelings of self-doubt and instead focus on the freedom to fully express herself.
“Wednesday” is currently streaming on Netflix.
