Jenna Ortega finds herself an unfortunate scapegoat on the writers strike picket line
Writers in support of the WGA strike are getting jokes off about Jenna Ortega's comments on the Wednesday script
Aux News Jenna Ortega
The true enemy of the Writers Guild of America strike is, of course, the networks and studios (represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP). Big bosses like David Zaslav are the typical target for picket line jokes, but some writers have found another, more unlikely target: Wednesday star Jenna Ortega.
The origins of Ortega’s unfortunate scapegoating are the infamous interview she did on Armchair Expert earlier this year, wherein she cast aspersions on the quality of writing on her hit Netflix series. “There were times on that set where I almost became unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” she said. “The script supervisor thought that I was like going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like ‘Wait, what happened to this scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”
Writers took umbrage with this admission at the time, and some of them held on to a grudge. “Jenna Ortega better be back from NY for her afternoon shift on the picket line,” writer Nick Adams (BoJack Horseman) tweeted following Ortega’s appearance on the Met Gala red carpet on Monday. Karen Joseph Adcock (Yellowjackets) retweeted with the comment, “Rewriting is writing! See you at the line, Jenna!”
Variety shared a photo from the picket line of Brandon Cohen (Disney Channel’s Just Roll With It) with a sign that read: “Without writers, Jenna Ortega will have nothing to punch up!”
It’s understandable why Ortega’s comments ruffled feathers, and she is likely one of the better-paid stars in the business compared to the average working actor. Nevertheless, Ortega’s tales from the Wednesday set actually illuminate how even a project’s lead actor can be overworked and ill-used. The schedule was about eight months of non-stop work in which she was not only acting for 12-14 hours a day, but was also trying to fit in cello lessons to make her character more realistic. She was either explicitly or implicitly (by way of serious pressure for a young woman to be carrying an entire production) encouraged to work even while sick, an illness that turned out to be COVID-19. “I did not get any sleep. I pulled my hair out,” she recalled of the shoot at a Q&A for the series. “There’s so many FaceTime calls that my dad answered of me hysterically crying.”
Ultimately, though Ortega could have chosen her words more wisely (or at least been more discerning about sharing them), the entity responsible for all of this is Netflix. After all, the notoriously poor conditions for writers at that streamer are surely not conducive to creating the best work, which is one of the issues WGA is protesting. If Hollywood treated its writers fairly, perhaps the Wednesday set would be much more harmonious.
539 Comments
Yeah, nothing inspires folks to your cause like snarking on a 20-year-old girl of color who is active in LGBT causes.
Dumb fucks.
What do her race and sexuality have to do with the writer’s strike
Everything, it’s the reason why she’s getting attacked while white actors who have done the same have gotten a passs
If she’s not-white, a lot.
Everything
poor defenseless TV star who shit on them publicly first
“Yeah, nothing inspires folks to your cause like snarking on a 20-year-old girl of color who is active in LGBT causes.”
Hey guys, she’s a POC and maybe gay, she gets to do anything she wants.
Fuck you, asshole.
Especially when she’s doing nothing different than every other actor who’s had thoughts on what their character would say.
If you read this one poorly written article that was clearly designed to gin up controversy out of none, and that makes you less sympathetic to the writers’ just cause, methinks you were never really on their side.
Here’s the deal. I’m on my own side. I pay $72.99 a month to YouTube TV, plus Netflix, Amazon Prime and the Hulu/Disney package.
In the winter, when I’ve got more binge time, I pay for a couple of months of HBO and Paramount to binge. Life’s too short for Peacock.
In short, I pay well north of $110 a month to be entertained. I expect them to settle their shit and give me content.
So, I’m not sympathetic to the writers. I’m not sympathetic to the bosses. Fuck them all with cacti soaked in grape jelly.
You’re not a bright person, are you?
this
Five bucks also says he’s also paying $8 a month to Elon for Twitter Blue. That’s the energy I’m getting.
And that’s exactly the kind of deliberately obtuse stupidity that the corporations count on. “Both sides”-ing this issue is tacitly supporting them over the writers, as is the case in every corporate overlords vs. workers dichotomy.
Precisely correct. This is how corporations have built disgusting profits while workers have seen their wages decline. They’ve convinced rubes like this that “unions” are evil, faceless machines, and therefore any fight between corporations and unions is just Godzilla versus King Kong.
$110 a monthSheesh. You’re basically paying for cable.
TBF, YouTube TV basically IS cable.
You hear that, you greedy writers? Stop advocating for better pay so you can continue to do your jobs and make a living. This asshole needs his content and doesn’t want to hear from the peasants who provide that content.
They could always sell cars
Yeah. And fix me a sammich
Lol. Lmao
I paid $20 for the YEAR for Peacock. I probably watch something on there once or twice a month. So, for me, that is about what it’s worth. Otherwise, your plan is almost identical to mine (though I trade a Netflix sign in for a Hulu sign in, so it’s a bit lower than yours…for now.)
Forgot. I also get AppleTV. I may someday get the urge to plow through Parks & Rec again and get Peacock.
Don’t bother. Set your YouTubeTV DVR to record it whenever it’s on. It’s running in chunks every day on a couple stations in syndication. In about 6 months you’ll have the whole series recorded for you to watch again. You just have to fast forward through the commercials.That’s what I did for The Office once it left Netflix for Peacock.
Ah, so you’re an idiot.
Wow, you’re a moron.
Do you think those fees go into the writers pockets? Bc that’s adorable.
I didn’t see a tip jar.
You’d probably ignore it anyway.
https://www.theonion.com/if-i-dont-get-my-medium-rare-shell-steak-with-roasted-v-1819583861
Well since the bosses won’t budge,telling both sides to settle it benefits the bosses. You’re on the bosses side.
That just makes you an asshole who doesn’t care about workers at all regardless of industry. That’s not the flex you seem to think it is.
No, no, you’re just very clearly a piece of shit.
What does any of this have to do with Jenna Ortega being a person of color or active in LGBT causes. Is more so a person of color or active in LGBT causes than any of the writers? Also, she’s a 20-year-old woman…not a girl…not a child.
Yeah, nothing inspires folks to your cause like snarking on a 20-year-old girl of color who is active in LGBT causes.Time to play: Spot the Republican.
You can always spot the liberal. They’re the ones who pile on to the woman when she doesn’t toe the company line.
In what universe does that statement make any sense? “Toeing the company line” means employees being pushed around by management. The writers’ guild isn’t the management, they are the ones fighting management, you half-wit.
No, she stepped out of the writer’s line. A bunch of hacks who feel powerless lash out at someone with barely more power and a shorter career in other to feel good.Meanwhile, Netflix executives giggle.
Are the writers powerful enough to enforce some imaginary line that you invented in your head because you hate the idea of collective action, or are they powerless hacks? I know ideological consistency from a dipshit conservative is a tall order, but try to keep up with the rest of us. For someone who wastes as much money on streaming services as you do, you should be on the writers’ side. Strikes are bad for content (See: Heroes). But you hate the idea of unions, as you have stated many times in your comment history, imagining that you’re better than your fellow peers. Are you a farmer? Stop suckling the government’s teat and get a real job like the rest of us.
Would it be okay to snark at a 40-year-old straight white dude who isn’t into activism? Just want to know where the lines are drawn.
Maybe she shouldn’t have attacked them, then.
That seems like mean spirited punching down, the girl’s like 20 years old give me a break.
Yeah, I’m not sure the “punching up” sign is necessary.
“Punching up” as in “punching up a script”, what she claims to have done with the original script for Wednesday.
I said I didn’t think the sign was necessary, I’m not arguing about what it means. Might I suggest a reading comprehension class?
The comment where you mentioned the punching up sign was a direct reply to a comment about punching down. It’s not a huge leap to think you were using the same sense of the phrase and it’s not surprising that multiple people interpreted it that way.
She was referring to herself as a script doctor, thus the sign. “Punching up the script.”
I…. get that.I just think it’s a dumb sign.
“Punching up” is kind of a compliment in this context though (making a script more entertaining).
A script that “punched up” is rewritten with jokes, one liners, and cultural references to make it more appealing to a different audience then the original script was intended for.
*sigh*
When you rewrite a script to add jokes and action it is called “punching up.” As in, “They had to punch the script up to make it funnier.”
I’m pretty sure “punch-up” in a script context refers to jazzing up a dull script…
Build ‘em up, knock ‘em down.
It’s the American way!
The tweets they’re referring to each have fewer than 200 likes each, I think this is avclub scrounging for drama
Much easier than to dive into the labor issues and question what the fuck the stewards/negotiators at the WGA are doing.
The AVClub is all about rage-clicks so, yes, their staff is probably expected to cherry pick all of the seriously extra drama wherever they can find it. And look how worked up commenters here get – so it works. It’s worse than sad. It’s manipulative.
Beyond the mean-spiritedness, it’s stupid. Their real enemy is the corporation, not some 20-year-old who dared to question the shit these clowns expected to come out of her mouth.
All these cutesy-wootsy-hootsy-patootsy signs really are basically the worst thing they could have done, but there’s a reason “LA area comedy writers” has been a pejorative for 30 years.
As if anyone looks to you for tips on labor relations
I feel like the tone of this article doesn’t jive with the tweets/signs they featured. Calling Jenna Ortega to the picket line (only half-seriously), or references to her punching up scripts, isn’t especially mean. It certainly doesn’t make her a “scapegoat” for failed contract negotiations.
I don’t think it’s mean spirited. These are admittedly funny, and it’s obvious they are being tongue-in-cheek. AV Club is doing that thing they do again. This bait. Don’t fall for it
Eh, those signs definitely don’t seem necessary to me.
Neither does this article.
It’s a Trap!
20 years old with 10,000 x the pay of the average writer she just said sucks at their jobs.
She did not say that.
The bigger problem (which is still unfair to Ortega) it seems like she may have already started the process of getting singled out by all writers.
I think it was stupid directing calling out the writers like that, her agent should have told her better, but she is a kid and doesn’t understand how one interview can affect your entire career.
“punching down” on the millionaire TV star
“That seems like mean spirited punching down, the girl’s like 20 years old give me a break.”
Ah yes, the out of work actors who are striking because they’re underpaid, they’re the real villains here.
She probably gets paid much more than the writers. She is more famous, more written about and celebrated than the writers. She has a bigger platform than the writers. She was the one punching down.
“20 years old” and “girl” are not compatible concepts. she’s an adult woman who ran her mouth, and whose punishment is…some pretty mild ribbing that will be instantly forgotten
They are absolutely compatible concepts, cool semantic nitpicking though.
Talking about what she did at work is in no way ‘running her mouth’, it’s ‘talking about her job when reporters asked her about it’.
i’m not nitpicking, and this isn’t just a semantic thing. there is absolutely a difference between a child getting mocked by adults, and an adult getting mocked by other adults.
You called what she did ‘running her mouth’, so you may not be the best judge of whether or not you’re actually nitpicking semantics.
Because you are, indeed, nitpicking the semantics.
she talked shit about her colleagues in a public forum. whether her frustrations were warranted or not, it doesn’t exactly fall under the realm of professional courtesy. if the positions were reversed and it was, say, Burton complaining about Ortega improv-ing awful replacement dialogue or whatever, i’d say it was Burton running his mouth. this just happens to be what foot the shoe is on this time.
what about the wording is odious to you? not trying to be a prick here; i genuinely don’t understand why it’s provoked a strong reaction.
That’s not shit talking, it’s talking about the job she did.My reaction isn’t ‘strong’, you’re nit picking about my wording and accusing her of trashing writers when she did no such thing. If you think that’s shit talking I have to wonder what you make of every day discourse.
Also, your lack of capitalization makes it hard to read your writing. Capital letters at the beginning of sentences like they taught you in school, please. Not using them doesn’t make you cool or special, it makes your writing hard to read.
you can talk about the job you do without highlighting the ways your colleagues fell short. “i crossed out whole pages of dialogue” could so easily be reframed as “i was given a lot of freedom to add my own thoughts to the character.” same underlying truth, but presented in a way that doesn’t step on any toes. a harmless courtesy in my view, especially when talking about something as lightweight as creative disagreements. (obviously, when it’s serious transgressions or harm involved, full frankness is an absolute necessity, professional courtesy be damned.)
but we don’t have to have the same definition of “shit-talking.” i’m not out here trying to change your mind. and while i can’t say this interaction was particularly civil, i at least appreciate that i had a chance to understand your point of view better
You are apparently a very sensitive person.“while i can’t say this interaction was particularly civil”It certainly was from my end, you’re out here nitpicking and accusing a 20 year old of shit talking her colleagues when she did no such thing.
And seriously, learn how to use capital letters. Not appearing ignorant gets you a lot farther in life than parading ignorance all around town.
Nah. It’s definitely shit-talking and very unprofessional unless the people she’s burning are pariahs or perennial money-losers. They aren’t, so it just looks bad. I’m sure she got plenty of comments about it so I doubt it’ll become a habit.
It’s absolutely not shit talking. If she would have said ‘oh yeah the script was pretty much shit, we had to rewrite almost everything as we went’, that would be shit talking.If you see what she said as shit talking I can’t imagine what you think when someone mildly criticizes something you do.
Ehhhh. “Shit talking” was perhaps not the best term to use, true, but at the same time, let’s not infantilise Ortega. She is indeed an adult woman, not a girl, and she’s a professional in he field. Whether you think her comments were appropriate or otherwise, she can definitely be held accountable for them.
She did not run her mouth, an interviewer ask her a question about the show and she answered. And the answer had nothing to do with bashing writers but her issues with some of the writing and how she and the writers fixed it.
Pretty confident that the dude with the sign was using “Punch Up” as in “punch up the script,” seeing that she said that she was rewriting i.e. “punching up” her lines.
Oh man, thank for clarifying the term “Punching Up”. That sign makes a lot more sense now.
I don’t know that I would even characterize this as punching, and the down is debatable considering she probably got paid 100x what they did. These seemed like pretty light jokes to me. They probably only mentioned her because they knew sites like this would eat it up.
Eh, I don’t really think it’s that much of a jab, but if anything it’s punching laterally. At this point, she is probably making more than most writers and, as a recognizable star, has better job prospects.
thats my take, she is a kid, dont we have mor pressing opponents here?
The lead of a show has far more status than the writers.
You… you thi M l that the writers who make a fraction of what she does, have a fraction of as much power as she does, and who were publicly trashed by her… is somehow punching down?Again: cant remember the last time I saw so many blatantly stupid takes on an article…
“That seems like mean spirited punching down”
Yeah, an out of work writer pointing out what a working actor said sure is punching down.
Why can’t these writers get off their golden thrones and kiss the feet of the little girl?
I think first on the call sheet dumping on writers might be the actual punching down.
This is a PR battle so it’s not a great idea to start slaughtering sacred cows. That said this looks pretty minor, hope everyone has a good laugh and they all get back to fighting the common enemy.
She is a full grown adult with a full scale acting career. Don’t infantilize her.
How do unknown writers with no clout “punch down” on the star of a television series who publicly disparaged them?
“The script supervisor thought that I was like going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like ‘Wait, what happened to this scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.” Wednesplaining.
I dunno, if the script supervisor wasn’t sure what she was doing seems reasonable she’d explain it to them….since, that’s kinda the job of script supervisor.
“The name “Wednesday” is derived from the name of Odin, another spelling/pronunciation is Woden. So, Woden’s Day became Wednesday.”-Me, wednesplaining.
People on here throwing themselves in front of Jenna Ortega to catch a bullet when she drew first blood, not them (…she drew first blood…*radio click*)
First Blood? Because she said the writing sucked in a show she was on months ago? I am fine with the WGA fighting for better pay but this just seems kinda petty.
writers are dumb shits
writers are dumb shitsI believe the writers for The Simpsons in its glory years would like a word.
I BELIEVE MARK TWAIN WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A WORD WITH YOU. Don’t be stupid, this generation of writers is trash.
Don’t be stupid, this generation of writers is trash.Lol, gatekeeping at its finest. Don’t ever change.
she’s been a working actor since she was like 3, she knows as well as anyone that writers get shafted constantly, don’t get paid like she does, and are the first to be smeared, degraded and fired. You don’t just “change the lines’ because you’re the star of the show; you’re not quite Julia Roberts or Bryan Cranston who’ve earned the right/ability to ‘improv” or punch up a characters scripted lines. I know Jenna is everyone’s favorite internet tv star of the moment but, come on already- give the writers the respect they deserve and appreciate their job and creations, before you defame them with snarky insight about how YOU’RE the better writer than the people who, you know, actually WROTE the damn thing.
She’s been a working actor since she was 3, and explained to the director and the script supervisor why she was changing the lines. When does she earn that right? You can appreciate writing as a profession, believe in the right to a living wage, AND criticize the lines you’re bringing to life on the project you’re working on.
When does she earn that right?when she joins the fucking WGA
“She’s been a working actor since she was 3, and explained to the director and the script supervisor why she was changing the lines.”
No, she specifically said that she changed the lines and people asked her about it AFTERWARDs. She absolutely did not explain to anyone why she was doing it.
“When does she earn that right?”
When she is hired to write the fucking script.
“You can appreciate writing as a profession, believe in the right to a living wage, AND criticize the lines you’re bringing to life on the project you’re working on.”
She didn’t criticize them, she changed them on a whim without telling anyone she was going to do it before she did.One question: CAN YOU FUCKING READ?
Because she knows her character better than they do and I guarantee if this was a white male actor, you would not be crying about what she did, you would be cheering them on, so spare me the bullshit.
I am cheering her on. The fuck bullshit are you on?
I should not butt in here, but I THINK Freddy was actually responding to Cancer up there. I could be wrong, but that makes more sense.
Was not talking to you
You literally replied to me. In Internet etiquette, that’s equivalent to talking to me.
Haha…she knows the character better than the people creating the character and writing for it? Her resume is mediocre at best…let’s not expect too much of her.
“because she knows the character better than they do?” really?
Nothing wrong with changing lines, lots of actors do it. But most of them don’t publicly announce it at the expense of their coworkers’ reputation.
She didn’t “announce” it. She shared her experience while being interviewed on a podcast, and called herself unprofessional while doing so. I understand that the “right” thing to do would be to never say anything bad about your projects (though why people outside of the industry are criticizing her instead of just enjoying refreshing honesty for a change is beyond me), but it’s blindingly obvious that many people here in the comments are lacking perspective and context.
The moment she was cast in the role, that’s when. Acting is collaborative, people working together to bring their personal touch, their knowledge and experience, to the final product. Do you have any idea how often actors and actresses get their part of the script and have suggestions or changes? It’s routine.
I’m gonna assume you meant to reply to the other guy.
It was hard not to hear what she said on that podcast and not think that part of the reason the situation was so stressful for her was that she was making it so. I don’t mean because she was being “difficult” or any other misogynistic word for a woman being outspoken. I mean that it seems like she probably took on a lot more than she probably needed to and likely could benefit from learning how to partner with the people on set including the writers so she can both get what she wants, seem supportive of the team, and not have to call her parents so upset.
Seriously, is there anything in this article where a writer is saying that she was wrong to change the script or that she shouldn’t have been punching it up? These people aren’t striking over actors making changes to their scripts. They’re making a reference to recent pop culture, and (possibly because they’re an American labor union) people perceive it as malicious.
Well, a writer would be idiotic to criticize the star of the show publicly, so of course you’re not going to hear from them on the record. But yes, this article is certainly much ado about nothing…a few picketers made an amusing joke, and that’s that.
What a bunch of thin-skinned babies. I support their cause, but the idea that the script for a Netflix Addams Family revival is so sacrosanct that the star should be shamed for altering it is stupid. Writers are important, but bad writing exists.
And let’s be real: it was the acting that saved Wednesday. The writing, the whole arc for the season, was warmed over Harry Potter with some token queerbaiting for topicality (I’m still angry at how they misuse the concept of conversion therapy in a subplot). What made it all tolerable was the cast – Ortega, Emma Myers, Gwendoline Christie, Luis Guzman – to name a few. Those writers should be grateful. They got a second season because of that great cast.
Given the context here, shouldn’t that sentence read, “Those writers should be grateful to be underpaid with no residuals?”
It’s possible for your overall cause to be just AND to be a dick about it.
It absolutely *blows my mind* that you hold yourself out as a producer on here and also readily demonstrate that you have absolutely zero concept of what expansive roles writers have in television production.
Producer and a writer. And I stand by what I said. The work on Wednesday was pure hack work. They got exactly what their writing was worth.
“Producer and a writer.”
Sure.
Yeah, the writing wasn’t know for their work, it was the cast and the atmosphere and the dressing.
If you would kindly let us know who you are it would help so we could point out how much of a hack you are.
Ypure aggressively ignorant and pathetic. And extremely lacking in self-awareness.
That warmed over Potter comes with a free side of excessive exposition. Mmm-mmm!
If we’re going to be “real” we have no idea what changes Ortega made and if they actually were improvements. Oh, and while we’re being “real” this was a couple of comedy writers making jokes. It’s a clickbait nothing burger.
So many bad takes in these comments.I dont care I the writing was bad (although, if it was, we should apparently blame Ortega since she wants everyone to think that she basically rewrite the show by herself), ehochni wouldnt know because I didnt watch it because I actually have taste, her comments were still incredibly stupid and selfish and u professional. She threw her entire writing staff under the bus, and implied that she is a better writer than all of them. As a professional, you dont do that. I dont give a shit how old she is. If you want to be a selfish and self-aggrandizing diva and throw basically an entire community under the bus, you damn well better be prepared for the well-deserved blowback.(And it really shouldnt need to be explained that no matter how good a cast is, they arent going to look good and succeed in giving good performances unless their parts are well-written. And yet, here we are…)
If I were writing for a show or movie, I would fucking love it if my actors knew their characters enough to tell me how they would act or react. I’d encourage that kind of thing on my set.
God I would do anything to run a TV show.
Exactly! It’s a collaborative medium, and I have little patience for autocratic types who take umbrage if even a single word is altered from their brilliant scripting. I thought it said a lot about Ortega’s commitment to the part that she sought to make improvements where she saw them as being beneficial. I really do think that series could’ve been a debacle, were it not for the actors.
I was with you until Guzman. I generally enjoy him, but he was the weakest link in the A family casting, and I say that as a person that doesn’t enjoy Armisen very much.
You are “angry at how they misuse the concept of conversion therapy?” First world problem indeed.
Of course it does. But that’s no reason to insult the writers publicly like that.
If their writing sucks, it should be called out.
Internally, sure. Publically, no.
“If their writing sucks, it should be called out.”
It doesn’t and it wasn’t.
It’s very unprofessional to publicly insult your co-workers. Especially in an ongoing project like a TV show. She could have taken credit for protecting the character and doing punch ups on the material without putting down the writing, as lots of other actors do.
She did not insult her co workers, she praised them to the hill.
Shes a 20 year old kid. Nick Adams is a 50 year old adult.
“It’s very unprofessional to publicly insult your co-workers.”Jenna Ortega did not insult her co workers, in fact she put up a lot of priase for them
Maybe,if the words bothered to stick to source material for shows and characters, it wouldn’t be needed.However, they’re so full of it, they could use the reality check more often and publicly.I support the strike, but they do need to honor source material more often.
Exactly. It’s pretty simple
So if the director was unhappy with Ortega’s performance, it would be fine if he gave an interview talking about how bad she was?
No, it absolutely should not be called out by one of the actresses whose career took off as a direct result of the show that they wrote for her. That is amazingly selfish, entitled, and unprofessional.Jesus, how are there so many stupid takes in this comment section?
You clearly don’t have a job.
In the real world, working with people who do a poor job, is why you get 9-5 salary.
Jenna is spoiled.
That’s not how it works. You don’t publicly bash your writers like that. It’s unprofessional.
This is an incredibly stupid comment. (Just following your advice.)
On the other hand, if a union carpenter fucks up a job at your house and you and your handyman father-in-law have to fix it, no one is expecting you to join the carpenter’s union.
I never saw Ortega insulting writers in general. I heard her criticizing some specific lines in her script that were genuinely off-character. And considering that she nailed her role, it looks like Ortega was right.
Who’s insulting them? She admits upfront she felt like she was being unprofessional, but actors talk about deviating from the script and improvising all the goddamn time.Fuck, it’s May the 4th…celebrating a film series where one of the most oft-quoted lines was improvised.
She did not insult the writers, she was talking about how certian scenes that were writing for her character did not make sense. Jenna when into detail on how she went to the writers with her issues and they changed the script for her. Huge damn difference
She did not insult the writers, she only talked about wanting to changed some dialogue that did not fit. Huge difference.
Writers routinely insult people for laughs. The fact that it’s in a script as opposed to an impromptu quip doesn’t change that fact.
See I don’t think it WAS an insult in the first place TBH. To me when that came out it came across more that she had an idea of who the character was and that it didn’t always mesh with how the writers viewed the character. And she was willing to actually sit down with them and hash out their different views of the character. I mean at the end of the day that’s an actors job to take a role and make it their own. Acting and writing are an art and there is room for give and take and interpretation in art.
I didn’t listen to the interview so maybe there’s more context, but from that quote, it just sounds like she approached it the wrong way. “borderline unprofessional.” Changing lines without talking to the script supervisor first. It doesn’t sound like she approached them like “hey, i was reading through the script and had concerns about the direction of the character. Can we talk about it before shooting?” And then to seemingly flaunt her unprofessionalism on a podcast. The criticism is not insulting, but going behind the writer’s back is.
That’s not even remotely close to what she said. Are you being extremely disingenuous, or are you just clueless as to what her actual comments were? She very publicly trashed them, implied that they suck at their jobs and that she herself had to basically rewrite everything and was personally responsible for every positive aspect of the show, and implied that she is actually a better writer than the entire staff of professional writers. She very publicly trashed them and threw them under the bus while being a self-aggrandizing and amazingly unprofessional a**hole.
Wah.
writers used to be alcoholic men who are pissed off at the world, and their humor were scars from a life of stress, now we have soi boi 120lb whiny drag queens pushing stupid agendas written into their brain by social media. fuckin babies
A LOT of actors come out and say they had to work with the writers to get characters right. She’s not the first and definitely won’t be the last.
Poor Miles Millar how will he go on.
I still don’t see the grand insult Ortega made against writers. She never said “oh, the wirting was terrible, I had to fix it.” There were some scenes she didn’t jive with. That happens all the time on sets, ad libbing and such. Movies and TV shows are a collaboration, writers, directors, actors and producers. No one is infallible.
Aain’t, genius: that happens all the time, and yet how many of those actors publicly trash their writers, claim that they are better writers than the actual writing staff, and strongly imply that they are personally responsible for any good writing on the show?I cant remember the last time I saw so many blatantly stupid comments on a single article…
I don’t know about a grand insult, but her comments were unprofessional. People aren’t running out to tell Vanity Fair every time an actor flubs their lines, or is late to set, or needs a hundred takes to get a scene right. Her running to complain to the press about how crappy the writing was on her show, and giving exactly the impression of what you claim she didn’t say, is a breach of etiquette—if you have complaints about the script, you usually raise them before you go on set, and you don’t talk to the press about it.
I don’t see the scapegoating being done to Ms. Ortega either so to be honest, this seems to be more of a tempest in a shit-stirring teapot than an actual storm.
Actually its not publically insulting them..
There was a time when the actor that “embodied” a character would be asked to consult with them to get their feedback as “the character” to see if something makes sense. The fact that she did that isn’t insulting to them… She didn’t say “They were crap”..what she said was she re-wrote some parts to better fit the character she was asked to portray and then she was able to articulate an answer.. If someone takes umbrage with that, then I think they have a problem with constructive criticism. (its not like she tossed it back to them and said “fix it” like some diva, she did the work, and then made sure everyone was on the same page during the review and table read).
After all a better product at the end means EVERYONE wins.. writers and actors.
I feel like there’s a lot of writers who know they’re not doing their best work and using that show as a stepping stone. As an actress Ortega should’ve at least realized that and have been a little more sensitive. I guess she’s learning now.
Sensitive over what? Jenna Ortega warned them that the love Triangle was not going to work and they did not listen to her. She was 100 percent right. Maybe they should have been a little open to her opinion then just blowing her off.
Sweet summer child. Jenna does not sign their checks.
With how horrible writers are sticking to character or source material the past few years- writers need to get knocked down a bit more often.
OH NO. don’t hurt the feewings of the wittle baby witers!!
I feel like there’s hostility being read into some fairly bland, tongue-in-cheek tweets/signs. I suppose “see you on the picket line” is kind of passive-aggressive, but that’s about it. Portraying it as “WGA assholes make delightful young actor a scapegoat for their strike” kind of reveals the writer’s sympathies.
Exactly. These are the type cracks we might get on a late night opening monologue, or might be written for a roast or correspondence dinner. No one is attacking Ortega or seriously demanding she be there. These are jokes. Just jokes.
if they’re struggling to land a joke on sign what does that say about their writing?
the best take
Ding Ding DingA hack is a hack is a hack
ZING!
Didn’t you get the memo? Jokes are bad.
That’s fair I guess. It’s not like they’re burning her in effigy. I just feel like it’s such a minor thing to get hung up on weeks later. And it wasn’t just a single sign, apparently.
“These scriptwriters are too thin-skinned!”- guy over reacting to jokes
They are trying to scapegoat Jenna in order to bring to light the issues they are facing and it’s only making people not very sypathetic to their cause.
Agree 100%Rewriting is writing. Doesn’t mean she is a scapegoat it points out that she didn’t get writer credits and also wasn’t compensated properly.
Do they really want her on the picket line? Because to me, that’s grounds for the SAG to demand their cut every time an actor edits the script, and the studios aren’t going to pay extra for that.
I understand your point that some of the tweets and signs on the picket line during the writers strike may be interpreted as tongue-in-cheek or somewhat innocuous. However, it’s important to remember that the context of a labor dispute is serious, and even seemingly lighthearted comments can contribute to an already tense situation. As for your reference to magic mushrooms , I must reiterate that it is not appropriate to introduce unrelated or potentially offensive topics in a discussion about labor disputes or any serious issue. Using drug references in this context can be seen as disrespectful and inappropriate. It’s important to approach these discussions with sensitivity and respect for all parties involved.
TBF bland slogans/signs at a writers’ strike tends to undercut the value of writers.
The G/O writers are a part of WGA, so I hope you aren’t implying she’s siding with management.
If the person writing this article is in the WGA why are they writing while on strike? The union members were forced out when GO relocated the avclub from Chicago to LA.
They are on strike against tv/movie companies not online journalism. Also, the magazines are a separate branch. I remember the relocation but didn’t actually check the state of the union for the AV club. Still, she’s not against the union.
My mistake. Anyway, it’s irrelevant because the current avclub writers aren’t WGA members. The avclub unionized years ago, but their remaining union employees left when the company relocated from Chicago to LA. https://www.pajiba.com/miscellaneous/the-gutting-of-the-av-club-is-an-embarrassment-to-the-industry-and-a-horrible-sign-of-its-future.phphttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/business/media/av-club-job-cuts-los-angeles.htmlAnyway, this non-union writer is editorializing that the WGA made a “scapegoat” out of Jenna Ortega, which is not aligned with reality and portrays the WGA as antagonistic. I think it reflects the casual antipathy that many Americans have toward organized labor.
“What a bunch of thin-skinned babies.”
It’s funny, you got offended by their mocking jokes, yet it’s them who are thin-skinned?
You’re offended even though THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY AND LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
I think the bigger issue here though is writers, good or bad, will probably start to take a defensive attitude with her.
It’s like how Katherine Heigl ruined her momentum by calling the production and cast of Knocked Up as morons, well, those morons are now in everything from independent productions to Marvel films and winning Oscars.
I blame Jenny’s agent for that interview, but she’s going to get alot more heat than this.
She also publicly trashed Shonda Rhimes!
Not defending her but it doesn’t mean they still aren’t morons. LOL. Rogan still is unfunny. Every dog has it’s day.
Rogan has literally written for at least five shows and movies you binge.
That dog, runs the yard.
Hey!! Thanks for letting me know what I watch??! List them please because I clearly have forgotten what I binge.
Thank you!
The fact that you capitulated and replied in this personal way tells me I’m right and you’re just angry Rogan is in your life more than you admit to.
Its not. That was angry? Awww…. Want me to apologize to your wittle feelings? You made it seem that way without knowing anything about me. I asked you to name what I supposedly binge by him……
Jenna did not at all attacked the writers and if they are thin skin over her just wanting rewrites for a couple of scenes, they should not be in the business.
She literally made the writers of the show seem like children and she was the adult that needed to correct them.
Now go ahead and defend your girl for acting out, but in what white lily world do you live in where there are no consequences for demeaning others?
But its stupid. Actors and directors often change lines or whole scenes if they think it fits better or they get into the characters better. Some famous scenes are based on actors going completley of the script and doing their thing.To blame her for doing her fucking job is ridiculous. Especially if she did it great.
And when she’s doing a bad job, is she also going to blame the writers for her acting?
Point is, in the real world, you learn to work with others.
She wants to be spoiled and call them out.
They have all the under paid freedom to respond however they want.
I agree that Heigals reputation as difficult is overblown and largely a product of the internets general hatred of all things women BUT1) She was consistently in successful movies for several years after Knocked Up. In fact after spending way more time on her wiki than I planned, i only see one genuine flop in 2012. Before that, everything she was in sold seats.2) She absolutley burned her bridges with Shonda Rhimes in pursuit of becoming a movie star. Not judging, lots of people would and have made that move. Would argue she’s done it successfully.3) Rogan, Judd, Apatow are juggernauts and I don’t think she ever could have been on that level. Knocked Up ensemble cast is full of talented folks who enjoyed similar success to Heigal in the years afterwards. I’m just saying, aside from the bad press, I don’t know if it hurt her career that much. Lots of folks haven’t won the MCU lottery yet, lots of “stars” in the MCU would have been forgotten into dust by now otherwise.
“She was consistently in successful movies for several years”
Oh…
Home Sweet HellHell..One for the Money No.
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
That dude could be a plant to undermine the cause. What better way to create a rift in the cause than to undermine it with a off topic remark.
“Jenna Ortega rewrote their horrible scripts which I will never read or see onscreen, so who cares?!”This is the most amusing paradox of the day.
Yeah, this does seem a bit shitty, if for no other reason than that so many actors have voiced support for the strike, so it doesn’t seem like a good idea for the writers to pit themselves against actors, a lot of whom probably engage in some ad libbing or “re-writing” on set on the regular.
Well, genius… how many of those actors publicly state that all of their show’s writers suck, that they themselves are actually better writers than the people writing their show, and that they are personally responsible for every single positive aspect of the show? None? Okay, then!
Dang, so folks aren’t allowed to make jokes?
Of course they are. But the fact that multiple people are making jokes about it and the fact that it got such wide coverage in the first place naturally leads me to believe that writers were actually offended by it. And I think that’s a silly thing to be offended by.
I don’t know what you do for work, but imagine someone in a completely different role at your company saying they had to re-do your work in addition to doing their job. Still think it would be silly to be offended by?
Well sure. If I was the specific person being referenced. But I wouldn’t get upset if someone said they had to redo the work of someone else at another company who did the same job as me. Why should I care? I’m assuming that the people holding the signs are not the specific Wednesday writers she was referring to, but I suppose it’s possible.
Jesus christ… I seriously cant tell if you’re a complete moron who somehow continues to miss the entire point, or if you’re aware of how idiotic your arguments are and are just dug in for some bizarre reason. Because holy s**t, is this comment stupid. It completely misses the entire point, by a very wide margin.
You think it’s silly to be offended that an actress whose career took off as a direct result of the show they wrote, publicly trashed them and strongly implied that she is better at their jobs than they are and that she basically had to do their jobs for them? Again: are you being disingenuous, or have you just given this zero actual thought?
I think the bigger deal here is that writers apparently think their works are so sacred people should just do as they are told, and that actors especially are nothing more than puppets that are to do as they are told and STFU. If I were an actor, and this is the message I am seeing writers putting forward and other writers being complicit with, I would be more than happy to try to drum up an actors guild strike.
The writers ought to thank Jenna Ortega for improving the script. Making the show better increases the chance of renewal, which in turn increases the chance that the writers will be employed for another season.
Her comments were actively harmful to the WGA cause (highly visible star says writers were worthless and she had to ignore their work) so I think she can take a few mild jokes in return if it helps their cause now in any way. (Which it won’t, not to the degree I’m sure her comments hurt. There’s no way execs aren’t citing her while trashing writers and lowering rates and clamoring for AI.)That this piece was written by someone who felt the need to Both Sides it by pointing out Ortega’s work schedule is also laughable. She’s paid a lot more, working conditions for writers are also bad, and if we want to pretend that they’re all on the same side in the fight against unfair working conditions in Hollywood then she shouldn’t have been the one to frame it differently in the first place.
highly visible star says writers were worthlessShe literally did not say that.
No, she just publicly proclaimed that they suck, that she is better at their jobs than they are, and that she was personally responsible for every bit of good writing on the show. Gee, why would they be upset?!?
She essentially did.
Nah.
Listen this is 4 months later but she trashed the writing on her show and that’s effectively the same thing when it comes to perception. I think it’s pretty clear I wasn’t saying that was her literal quote. But cape away!
So if I trash something, that’s effectively the same thing as saying that the person who produced that thing is “worthless”?
Jenna Ortega did not attack the writers, she only talked about some scenes that did not make sense for her and the character.
“highly visible star says writers were worthless and she had to ignore their workThat is, in no way, what was said.
oooof… that sign is so MEH level funny that we know of at least one writer that’s NOT being missed during this strike.
To be fair, it’s possible they’re not using their A-material on a picket line sign.
Agreed. See the last two season of GoT or the current final season of Ted Lasso. You cannot tell me the writing is really good.
It’s impossible to overstate how stupid this comment is. You… you realize that different shows employ different writers, correct? And that the showrunner is the one who decides what the actual plot is?
Good username/comment synergy
To be clear, my writing is absolutely sacrosanct.
This should be obvious, but this whole story is just rage bait to get her rather large fandom to turn against unions. And apparently it worked pretty easily.
Of course! The strike isn’t to improve conditions only for writers who only do excellent things. But (a) the actor’s job is to say the lines and hit the marks, and (b) while I know zero about Ms Ortega, I would trust the writers to know good writing over her. There are certainly actors who write too (and writers who act, btw), and she may end up being one of those and writing wonderful things. Time will tel.
The strike isn’t to improve conditions only for writers who only do excellent things.For sure. I don’t think anyone should be using the fact that bad writers exist to make it seem like the strike isn’t necessary or warranted. But (a) the actor’s job is to say the lines and hit the marksI don’t totally agree. If you’re a day player or something, sure. But when you’re the star and your name and face are going to be all over the advertisements, it’s totally normal and acceptable to make sure that the lines you’re saying and the things you’re being asked to do reflect well on you and the production as a whole. I believe they said Jenna is going to take on a producer title in season 2 because of her involvement.
Ues, a lot of actors take an active role in their characters. How many of those actors then proceed tonpublicky trash their writers and claim that they are actually better at their jobs than they are?None? Okay, then!
In almost every series the first season is crap because the writers really don’t know what they are doing until they see what the directors and actors are doing with it, to see how the interactions that seemed like such a great idea in the writer’s room look in costume and character. One problem for the writers is they are creating a large number of characters and are looking to develop some overall plot – for actors, they are performing only one, over and over and over, for hours, days, and weeks at a time. The actors are putting on make-up, the costumes, generating the emotions, and living the story. Which of them has the greatest connection to the character and to the story? If the script is great the writers can submit it for screen-writer’s award consideration where it can be compared to what went onto the screen. “The City on the Edge of Forever” was one such script in which the writer was overridden, but both the original script and the very divergent production were excellent.
I would guess that most people have a better idea of who Wednesday Addams is than the writers of Wednesday.
Would you trust the writers to know good writing just because it’s their job? Are you saying that only the person that wrote something is able to judge how good it is?Writing can be good on the page, but bad on the stage.
“Thin-skinned babies” feels like a reach. Maybe if they were actually scapegoating her, but the comments as-is read as pretty mild ribbing to me. They’re more just referencing the situation than blaming her for anything. I thought the “Rewriting is writing! See you at the picket line!” was kind of clever, in being like, hey, if your contributions were significant then you should join us/show solidarity.
I don’t think the signs are super out of bounds or anything. But the fact that it was a controversy to begin with and something being brought up weeks later is dumb.
I don’t disagree with that. I can understand writers being peeved by her comments but I think the “controversy” or outrage over it doesn’t actually exist. Or it’s at least relatively low on the list of things people are upset about. Actor vs writer ego struggles are nothing new.
I got a chuckle from the examples given and at no point did it feel like they were being overly harsh to her (or harsh at all)
Exactly. David Zaslav makes $250 Million a year, but let’s pick on the brown girl.
What’d Mindy Kaling do now?
Jesus Christ, people. These are clearly jokes and outlets (like this one) are trying to make it into “scapegoating” for clicks.
If you’re this upset by a casual joke about a 1%er, maybe it’s not the writers who are thin skinned.
She should be shamed for publicly trashing it, not altering it.
It’s also far from the first time it’s happened. The stars of Pirates of the Caribbean have said they largely ignored the script of the first movie and it would have been a way different and worse movie if they hadn’t.
This is an aggressively terrible take. If you dont see why writers would take issue with an (by many accounts) entitled teenage actress throwing the entire writing staff under the bus, implying that she is a better writer than any/all of them, and also implying that she herself was personally responsible for every single positive aspect of the show, then you’re either being disingenuous or youre just plain ignorant. It was an amazingly selfish thing to do, and hurtful to the people who actually write for their careers (not to mention potentially damaging to their careers). If you want to be a selfish and self-aggrandizing diva and throw your entire show’s staff under the bus, be prepared to deal with the consequences.
I can actually imagine Paul Kinsey with a take this bad, so good work.
Isn’t this why Joey was killed off of Days Of Our Lives?
A lot of these are attention grabbing jokes.
“What a bunch of thin-skinned babies.”
YEAH! They should be happy to have their cast pretending they rewrote the scripts.
So a couple of writers made a couple good natured jokes about Ortega? What’s the big deal, it’s literally just a joke on a sign. They are hardly making her a scapegoat. This article and your comment are blowing this way out of proportion. Ortega’s comments about her show’s scripts were fine, and the couple of jokes writers have made about Ortega are fine. It’s not a big deal at all.
I mean sure, but also the jokes are pretty funny while also being very tame.Jenna could have handled her comments better as well. Sure, there may have been things that were off, and she may have helped with those, but they are also right, that if the story didn’t exist there wouldn’t be anything for her to help elevate. This stuff is always a give and take between the writers and the director and what the actors bring to the material. But talking about how the writers on your show were so terrible that you had to take it upon yourself to “save” the show (this is how her words are being interpreted, even if that’s not how she meant them) is not a smart strategy.
This. The first two episodes had a bit of a punch to them but it quickly descended into your average teenage vampire high school drama. I remember remarking at the time how much every aspect seemed the product of countless meetings attempting to sand everything to a shining polish, only to leave it looking dull.Ortega was the pure draw and pretty much everyone said so. Hope the young woman goes places.Everyone also remarked on how silly it would be for Wednesday Adams to be upsetthat her father killed a rival suitor, as opposed to morbidly pleased. Like, Gomez and Morticia would have had to say, “which suitor? your father vanquished so many over the years, it became rather dull”
The star should be shit on for thinking it’s her place to do so. Have you ever had a job? Have you ever heard the term “stepping on toes” this was obnoxious on her part. There’s a chain of command you don’t turn around and shit talk your makeup artists work etc. especially not as a lead actor. That’s how suddenly no one wants to work with you again. Let’s take her down from the pedestal please.
lmao get a life loser. Do you know that acting is a job like other jobs and etiquette still exists? Nobody cares if shes an it-girl she’s like 12 and shes talking shit about her coworkers and altering their work without being asked to.
You missed the point. The issue isn’t that she changed some things. The issue is that she keeps publicly insulting the writers. She’s doing what Katherine Heigl did years and years ago on Grey’s Anatomy. Heigl was eventually fired for her comments.
She’s not being singled out for making changes. It’s for doing so very publicly and basically saying her coworkers sucked at their job.
Writers are 1000% right to be striking.Writers are 1000% wrong to think that every word they write cannot possibly be improved upon.
“Writers are 1000% wrong to think that every word they write cannot possibly be improved upon.”
And they said that somewhere, right? Anywhere? Care to cite a source? Just one? Come on, I’m only asking for one source. Just one quote from ANYONE saying ANYTHING resembling what you’re accusing them of.
Come on.
Please?
Just one?
Yeah, the pithy joke they made on a sign about a specific person definitely translates to them saying it cannot possibly be improved upon.
Name one TV writer who thinks that. Believe me, they know what their status is.
Two things can be true: the writing on Wednesday was not good, and also even mediocre writers don’t deserve to be treated like temp workers.
Who said she treated the writers badly? The head writers on the show just praised her.
Was the writing on Wednesday not good, or did Jenna Ortega make the writing bad by changing the main character’s motivations for everything?
Yeah it is weird how everyone just kind of takes her word for it that her changes were ALL for the best, and that ALL of the other writing sucked.It is kind of a great example of the crap writers go through.
Judging by the lines of dialogue she changed, she was right
You are assuming that these are the ONLY lines of dialog she changed.You dont actually know what she changed, and what the writers wrote across the series.I mean, she can be 100% correct that those lines stank, and then changed other parts that didnt work as well as what they wrote, and you would attribute those bad lines to the writers and not to her. Get it?
We don’t know what she changed, but we know she only changed her own lines and wasn’t involved with plotting. Like, nothing she has said dismisses the importance of writers.
But what we DO know is that many people have criticized the writing of the show. (I dont really agree with that but it is neither her nor there).And a lot of those same people who criticize the writing use her changing lines as an example, but that only works if all her changes were good, and we dont know that.She certainly implies in the interview that as the show went on, she did this multiple times, to the point where she herself calls her behavior on set unprofessional.
Judging by the show as a whole and the horrible storytelling and dialogue it has, Jenna’s the one whose word I take over the writers
Ah, she’s following the old Joss Whedon playbook (uh… but presumably without all the sexual harassment): I wrote everything you liked, and everything you disliked was somebody else’s fault.
I dont think she is doing that at all, really.But people who support her DEFINITELY are. You can see it many times in this thread and the comments to the article overall..
Yeah I thought I was being a little flippant about that acquisition but I admit that could’ve been clearer.
No, I got that you were beign flip. Just judging by the tenor of the comments on this thread I was more thinking about other commentators taking that as truth.
No, Jenna herself never praised her performance. In fact, she was harder on herself than anyone else on the show during that podcast.
And yet he admitted to writing the “What happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning” bit.
Well, yeah, but if I recall correctly, he said the line wasn’t that bad and implied it was Halle Berry’s fault for giving a bad delivery. This was actually one of the examples I was thinking of when I wrote my previous post.
“The fault apparently lies with writer Joss Whedon, who admitted that he wrote in a 2001 interview with The Onion AV Club. He was involved in early scripts of the film which were gradually revised until only a few of his original lines were left, and one of them was the line about toads. Rumors held that Toad himself asked several rhetorical questions earlier in the script as a way of taunting his opponents. Whether they existed or not, they were dropped with the bulk of Whedon’s script, leaving the line hanging awkwardly with no support.In the interview, Whedon casts blame on Halle Berry, who played Storm. He claims it was intended to be delivered casually, with nonchalance and that Berry played it “like she was Desdemona.” Looking at the scene, however, a casual delivery simply wouldn’t have worked. Toad had quickly incapacitated both Scott and Jean and proved more than game when taking on Storm herself. Berry’s ultra-serious delivery — while it added to the line’s infamy — matched the literal hurricane of her superpowers on display and epic life-or-death circumstances of the movie’s climax. The line itself should have been changed, but the actor’s choice of delivery had nothing to do with it.”https://www.cbr.com/xmen-storm-toad-movie-quote-deleted-scenes-explained/
Yup, another example I remembered was about the Alien movie that he wrote. I forget the exact context but it was a similar situation of “the thing I made would’ve been great but other people came in and screwed it up.”
I’ve heard him say that, and I disagree. It’s a dog of a line and there’s not a good way to deliver it.
Oh yeah, definitely. It’s just a bad line and that dude refused to acknowledge it AND tried to blame the actress instead of his own bad writing. I guess that’s not such a surprise now that we’ve heard how shitty he was to so many people he worked with over the years.
To be fair, that is likely the case for the JL movie.
Were there even any good parts about the Justice League movie? I watched it once while I was trapped on a plane with nothing better to do and I still hated it.
I thought the same thing when I read the quote. Don’t bring attention to one of he weaker parts of the production while taking credit for it.
This didn’t do it for me.
I haven’t watched any of the show, but it occurs to me we could test this hypothesis by looking at the writing for characters not played by Ortega.
Early show, many of the characters worked. Though the forced love triangle elements were always bad. The overall plot required a lot of people to pass the idiot ball around though. It was like someone took the time to actually develop the characters and their motivations and then passed the pen to someone from the CW’s late-series plot teams.
It sounds like if anything, Ortega improved the writing of the show by calling out ways Wednesday wouldn’t behave in the script and asking to change it. From her telling, biased as it might be, it sounds like a good character change.
Honestly, Wednesday herself was one of the strongest points of the show. Ortega’s portrayal of the character worked. The plot is what didn’t really work. The love triangle was forced (and totally out of character for Wednesday), the monster reveal weak, the ‘mastermind’ dull, the mastermind’s actual plot was laughably bad (seriously, it ran on a mix of luck and general incompetence from everyone), and the final villain poorly executed.
Gwendolyn Christie and Riki Lindhome were basically wasted since their characters had depth but the story didn’t want to use them as anything other than red herrings because the ‘twist’ was more important than the narrative making sense. Plus whoever thought that Wednesday needed to have relationship drama be a major focus in the first season, completely missed the point of her character.
Additionally, Fester was well executed but Gomez was a disappointment. He was really, really passive.
Oh my god, thank you. People are talking as if there should just be a union for good screenwriters, but that isn’t how labor works.
Let me punch that up. “…just a union for writers whose work actors like, but that isn’t how labor works.” I don’t know the show, but I don’t take her word for it that her not liking a line makes it bad.
they’re treating the writers like temps because that is who they’re hirring, they’re not hirring a lot of quality writers, just idiots who write what they’ve already seen before, and more idiots pushing agendas they saw on the internet.
Sounds good, but how about a little “don’t shit on the 20 year old actress when you could shit on the people really running the business”?
And how do temp workers deserve to be treated?
I genuinely can’t tell from some of these comments whether they’re being intentionally self-deprecating and humorous (you know, to show off the wit you’re losing by not having professional writers) or genuinely embittered. “Rewriting is writing! See you at the line, Jenna!” gives real passive-aggressive energy, but “Without writers, Jenna Ortega will have nothing to punch up!” is pretty funny.Either way, Jenna Ortega is on your side. Solidarity or GTFO.
Right. This article comes off the same way as when AV (or was it Kotaku) tried to make it seem like Seth Rogan blew off doing a voice for the Mario movie when in reality his quotes were he told them up front he wasn’t going to do a voice and they still hired him.
And that what some of these writers fail to understand. She praised everyone on that show. The only complaint she had was some of the writing and the ridiculous long hours she had to work.
People made some harmless jokes and the AV Club and other outlets are choosing not to understand this to get a few more clicks
I mean, I’m kind of hoping she’ll show that she can both take a joke and realizes that maybe her comments weren’t necessarily articulated in the best possible way and show up on the line! Plenty of actors have already.
I think it was all toungue-in-cheek and I don’t get why everyone is so up in arms. lol
Please stop trying to justify her completely insensitive, Joey Tribiani-esque comments. Even if there was some truth in what she said, saying it publicly was a huge slap in the face to the writers on the show, and was completely insulting and unprofessional.
Bullshit. When Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland improv entire scenes as Iron Man and Spider-Man, they are considered sooper-geniuses.
This girl does it and she’s mocked by the mediocre.
lol you believe that anything on a Marvel movie is improvised, that’s hilarious
There’s a difference between improv and “I had to tell the writers I wasn’t doing any of the dumb shit they wrote”.
I guess I missed the part where Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland then went on to say that the writing was garbage.
Exactly, I’ve seen many “making of” documentaries and so often the good movies have actors with good ideas and a director that lets the actors try them.
What’s that have to do with this situation?
But there is a difference between actors doing improv while filming and “everyone” else is present than an actor going home at night and rewriting and omitting entire scenes with no one being aware of it. It doesn’t matter what sex they are, it’s a big-shotting attitude.
I’ve never seen the interview when Tom and Robert said “I had to explain my character to that dumb script supervisor.”
LMAO no one thinks they’re even regular geniuses, weirdo.
Can you point to where Holland and Downey Jr publicly trashed the writers?
That’s a fair point. But I’d also argue that none of these writers are going to try to punch up to RDJ. Ortega is an easy target for them.
Ortega was the one who targeted them. RDJ didn’t. Not sure why you keep bringing him up at all, as he has nothing to do with anything. A couple writers with signs hit back at Ortega after she publicly trashed them. Big deal. This is not even an actual story. This is AV Club trying to gin up controversy.
Ortega did not target the writers who saw fit to drag her name into their labor action. She said she disagreed with the writers on HER show, and these writers from OTHER FUCKING SHOWS swooped in without:
1) Seeing the draft of what the Wednesday writers had done
2) Seeing how much Ortega changed
3) Being a part of a single meeting where Ortega and the writers hashed it out.
So walk that dog around somewhere else and see if it poops in that yard. Get it out of mine.
It’s entirely irrelevant what the Wednesday writers wrote or what Ortega changed. It’s entirely irrelevant if her changes were an improvement, or if the writers were good or bad. She was a rude jerk who publicly trashed the writers on her show (you lied when you said she merely “disagreed”) so naturally all WGA writers took umbrage. And a couple hit back at her with signs that no one read or cares about, except AV Club and the weirdos such as yourself who think Ortega is some kind of beleaguered hero being unfairly targeted, when she’s actually a snot-nosed kid who publicly insulted her co-workers for the lols.
“There were times on that set where I almost became unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” Ortega recalls. “The script supervisor thought that I was like going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like ‘Wait, what happened to this scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”If your words are so precious that you can’t handle that, go work in a fucking factory.
I think you either genuinely don’t understand the issue (which is not that she had a problem with the writing, but that she saw fit to say it publicly) or are just pretending not to. I’ve said it like ten times as have others and you’re too stupid to get it. I guess? Or just lying. I don’t know anymore.
Here’s a partial list of men who have done it. https://www.ranker.com/list/actors-who-rewrote-their-characters/ashley-reign
Alan Rickman took the script for Robin Hood to a fucking Pizza Hut and got his friends to help him rewrite that dreck. We know this because… he fucking said it in an interview, which seems awfully embarrassing for the writers. I don’t recall the WGA dragging him for filth.
Cruise, Affleck, Nicholson, Brando, and yes, RDJ (who’s Iron Man 3 behavior is listed here.) He demanded new lines DURING shooting.
But because this 20-year-old Latina didn’t properly stroke the wittle fee fees of some two 50-something white male showrunners when she talked about rewriting shit she was expected to say, some OTHER writers who weren’t even there took the opportunity to punch down because they are too gutless to punch up.
Cruise, Affleck and RDJ could end their careers with a nod. In their primes, Brando and Nicholson could too. Rickman didn’t give a fuck. So they stay away from them.
But God help the young woman of color who tries it.
So, I fucking get it. I fucking get who is allowed to talk shit about writers and who isn’t. It’s all white there.
Rickman didn’t rewrite it willy-nilly as you imply. He actually got help from his friends who were actual screenwriters, took their suggestions to the director, and got direct permission to make those changes and others from the director. Which, by the way, is what RDJ did when asking for the writers to write new lines for his character. https://www.slashfilm.com/1135762/alan-rickman-secretly-did-his-own-script-editing-on-robin-hood-prince-of-thieves/These both are far different from making massive changes all on your own and then ordering the writers to accept your changes.Your continual efforts to try and make this about ethnicity or sex are complete failures.
Rickman and Reynolds didn’t ask the writers to accept the changes. They just didn’t care whether they did or not. But I see why your vision might be colored here. Whatever. It’s all white.
I gave evidence backing up my claim. Yours still has no evidence except that you want it to be that way to fit what you want it to be.
The funniest part is that the writers quoted in this article who are very mildly mocking Ortega are POC.
You literally just said some unknown powerless writers punched down on the star of a television show. Take a step back and consider how bat shit insane that is. And uh, you might want to sit down for this, but the writers quoted in this article as mildly mocking Ortega (that you described as “punching down” on the star of a TV show) were…uh…not white men. Nick Adams is a black man. Karen Joseph Adcock is a black woman. OH NO. How will your brain process this?! Who will you automatically side against if no one is white?!?!And your link only gives one example of an actor publicly trashing the writers, Alan Rickman. I know you desperately WANT the topic to be “Which actors rewrote their script/improvised lines”? But the actual topic is “which actors publicly insulted their co-workers”? And the answer is Ortega and Rickman, only. And Rickman had the sense to do it long after the fact.
The unknown Wednesday writers have kept their mouths shut. It’s showrunners of OTHER shows butting in to comment on a writer’s room and process they know nothing about.As for Adams and Adcock, well, I can’t explain why two writers of color would feel the need to cape for two white 50-year-old Aussie showrunners, but there are plenty of Stephens out there looking for their Calvin Candie.
No one is caping for anyone, you smug asshole. They are sticking up for their co-workers from an attack from an actress who punched down on them. And she never mentioned any showrunners, so that’s yet another lie from you.
That’s a white man holding that “punch up” sign and it’s Brandon Cohen, who doubled down. Stephen DeKnight, a 57-year-old white man, called her “toxic.”
They really do seem to be picking their target. I’m sure it’s satisfying and safe and maybe they get little chubbies doing it. Not the smartest move, but hey, if they were smart, they’d have gotten jobs that paid better.
So you’re just going to pretend there were no non-white men or women writers who criticized Ortega? Because then you’d have to admit this isn’t a race thing, right? And that’s the only argument you have. And your attacks on writers in general reveals exactly who you are and the lack of integrity you have. TLDR; fuck you.
fee fees?
Baby talk for feelings
When actors improv, they also usually do a take as-written, and let the directors decide which way to go. They don’t re-write, they add to what exists.
It sounds like Ortega was flatly refusing to perform the scenes as-written. And maybe she was right! But it’s not quite a 1:1 comparison you’re making.
hmmm, what 2 significant things make RDJ/TH different from Ortega?
“Bullshit. When Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland improv entire scenes as Iron Man and Spider-Man, they are considered sooper-geniuses.”
And they did that when? And they were considered super-geniuses when?
You’re an extremely unintelligent person.
Improv isn’t the same as rewriting the text. It may replace it, but it isn’t the same as saying that what exists is shit and that you are going to change it because you’re so much smarter and better than the writers.
“Joey Tribiani-esque”? Wait, when did that become a thing?
Ever since that Friends episode where he criticized the writers aired?
When someone did something in a way that Joey Tribiani did.
Jesus, you’re fucking stupid.
In friends joey gets killed off from his soap opera for claiming he wrote his own lines
That is kinda funny.
Could it be any more of a thing?Wait, wrong Matt.
One of those Matt’s got his own show . . . albeit briefly.
Several of them, in fact.
oh yeah, somehow I forgot about this
Now we know who is going to fell off the elevator and die in the Wednesday 2.
“Joey Tribiani-esque”? Wait, when did that become a thing?lol, it definitely is not
There was a Friends episode where he makes similar disparaging comments regarding improv and dialogue, and in retribution, the show writers kill his character by having him fall down an elevator shaft.
Can you not see the 1/2 dozen replies explaining this or does your trivia boner just demand you say it anyway?
To be fair, there is a fairly decent chance they can’t see it. Since Kinja can be awful at displaying comments at times.
good point.
It’s the AV Club: we all know they give zero shits about writers and writing. I mean, look at *gestures broadly at site*
Bits of the banner image comically fall to the floor in a shower of dust and cobwebs.
They’re already working out “snarky” hot take, and by “hot” I mean “shit”, about how anyone who thinks that a banner shouldn’t be covered in cobwebs and fall apart is a bit of a crybaby, and should get over themselves, and that banners are overrated anyway and we should all be grateful they even have banner.
But if it were any of the Star Wars Prequel cast rebuking that writing; people would be cheering and calling for a parade. There has been so much shit made of Ortega’s comments that isn’t justified.
But the Star Wars movies were pretty much universally reviled. The issue we’re having here is essentially an actor trying to take all the credit for a successful show.
Say what you will about Ortega’s professionalism, but she was not trying to take all the credit for a successful show. She was talking about how stressful the experience of filming it was and exactly how she asserted herself on set.Personally, I give her slack because she’s still very young and a woman in a still-mostly-male-dominated industry speaking on a podcast (as opposed to a press conference or a red carpet).
I do think her age probably showed a little bit with the comments because you can see what she probably means, but you can also see how if you’re one of the writers on the show hearing the star say how they could barely say the things you wrote isn’t great.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I have yet to see any of the writers that actually write for Wednesday complain about what she said. Yes, I do see how I could find it insulting if I was them. But I think that by bringing up insensitive comments she made weeks ago during a writer’s strike, it makes it seem as if she was insulting the entire profession, when she wasn’t.
Arguably, the writers on the show don’t feel they can point out that the star of the show hurt their feeling or diminished their work. It sort of speaks to the whole writers are undervalued.I mean a few writers pointed out her comments here (which were insensitive to writers and on topic of the trend to devalue writers) and people are taking a “how dare they!” stand.Of course, they aren’t talking.
IMO, if you see her comments as devaluing writers, I’m not sure I believe you ever valued how important writers are to the production process. Changing lines or ad-libbing on set happens. As someone else pointed out, no one accuses Larry David of not valuing writers because Curb Your Enthusiasm’s dialogue is improvised. And while it’s potentially insulting to the writer for the lead actor to openly criticize the writing, it doesn’t follow (to me anyway) that criticizing the writing on one show devalues the profession as a whole. You need writers, or the show wouldn’t exist (which is what the sign in the header image is jokingly saying). I’m sure there are people that don’t understand that, but reading an anti-labor sentiment into Ortega’s comments is wild to me.
I think you didn’t listen to the full interview.She didn’t claim to adlib. She also isn’t on a show where adlibbing is part of the set up like Curb – where the writers are on set and they are part of that process. She changed that she, on the spot, made the choice to delete entire scenes, that she re-wrote multiple parts of episodes before coming on set, and that she changed the motivations of the characters. She literally said the script supervisor had to stop her.Soundbites don’t really bring that across, but if you listen to both the podcast and the interview she did with Christina Ricci, she implies that she didn’t just change lines, but that she rewrote most of some episodes.There is wanting to cultivate a stronger show and there is overstepping a line. Jenna Ortega overstepped a line and then wanted praise for it. I’m sure her age is a big part of it.
“Say what you will about Ortega’s professionalism, but she was not trying to take all the credit for a successful show.”
Sure she was.
Bro, one of the most famous lines from Star Wars was improvised on set.
Jenna Ortega has never taken credit for the show, the show runners and the press has. She should cause she’s the only reason it works.
What? The Star Wars movies were universally reviled? Maybe The Rise of Skywalker but certainly not the entire series.I haven’t seen Wednesday, but the consensus seems to be that Jenna Ortega deserves all or at least the lion’s share of the credit for it being successful. Even the Rotten Tomatoes summary says as much.
Those are sequels they referred to the prequels which the writing in was particularly bad especially the dialogue.
You’re right. The comment I was responding to just said “Star Wars movies,” but I see that the comment they were responding to said prequels specifically. Those films are not universally reviled either at this point, but they were closer at one point for sure.
I’m bored so I did some googling and was surprised to see Revenge of the Sith is “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes and ranked above Return of the Jedi and several ancillary films on Metacritic.Now, I actually think it’s overrated and has benefitted from lowering of the bar, but it does seem like the widespread notion that everyone hated them upon release is revisionism.
Yeah. The take at the time was more than the first one was bad and they improved incrementally as they went on. Though there are a lot of true revisionists who insist that all three are masterworks.
I was selling DVDs for Columbia house via telemarketing after phantom menace came out and that was one of the movies I’d end up talking about constantly and the positives were about the technology ie “I’ve wanted to see a big star wars battle like that forever” but no one was really happy with the stories or dialogue.
The issue we’re having here is essentially an actor trying to take all the credit for a successful show.I don’t think that is quite it. She is young and answering questions on the fly in an interview. It does sound like the writers, in some cases, were not doing that great a job in writing what a teen character might sound like and what Wendsday Adams might sound like in particular. So she would say, wait, should my character actually be saying this? There is nothing wrong with that. Dave Bautista had the same, vocal complaints about the writing for him in the Avengers movies (vs the GotG ones) and no one is taking him to task for it. Lots of actors bring that complaint up, this is nothing new. Nowhere do I think she said “It was great, but that is all me.” Personally I think the show was “fine” and I look forward to a possibly stronger 2nd season. But a lot of the acting was way hammed up, which is more on Burton than anything, but also partly on the scripts.
The Star Wars prequels and Wednesday are the same thing: kids entertainment that adults watched. But it was sloppy even for kids entertainment.
“There has been so much shit made of Ortega’s comments that isn’t justified.”
There has bee SO FUCKING LITTLE made of her stupid comments that you should just shut the fuck up.
It’s about Racism, sexism and entitlement. If a white male lead star on a tv series or movie asked for dialogue changes or brought up issues with the storytelling, they would be celebrated as caring about their work but if a latina actress of the same stature brings up those same issues, she is called difficult and toxic which Some in the press attacked Jenna Ortega for.
I’d say it’s more about being a 19 year old kid in her first big role.
If a white male lead star on a tv series or movie asked for dialogue changes or brought up issues with the storytelling, they would be celebrated as caring about their work but if a latina actress of the same stature brings up those same issues, she is called difficult and toxic
But it’s not apples to oranges. She changed the lines and scenes herself. If a white male actor did that they too would be called difficult. Hell, even when David Milch would change lines and scenes he himself written the day of filming people would say often say he made it difficult. There is nothing wrong with asking lines or scenes be changed. But when an actor is actually going against the writers and producers and changing the lines themselves, that is an issue.
>If a white male lead star on a tv series or movie asked for dialogue changes or brought up issues with the storytelling,That isn’t what happened. By her own omission, Ortega didn’t ask for changes. She made changes without asking and then told the writers why she was right and they were wrong about the character they created. Stop trying to White Knight for her.
Nah, I’m in some story rooms and the overwhelming sentiment has been, “uh huh, what else is new?” and “good for her if that was the case.”
Just trust me when I say the writers that work week after week delivering for their shows haven’t given a second thought to her comments. She’s FAR from the first actor to say it and she won’t be the last.
If she had named specific writers and if the statements were proven to be demonstrably false then it would be an issue. As far as I’m aware neither of those are the case here.
I await her elevator shaft in Season 2.
Like that blond actress from Grey’s Anatomy … what the hell was her name … that didn’t want an Emmy nom cuz the material wasn’t that good. She ended up doing cat litter commercials eventually.
Heigl is worth like $25 million dollars. I think she turned out alright.
“How you doin’?” – Jenna Ortega.
Oh get over yourself – perhaps her honesty was a brash miststep as a 20 something. However, if the writing was shit and she’s hired to play Wednesday because she knows the character better, then maybe the writers should learn to take feedback.She may be no [insert paragon of female actor here] but he’s surely no [insert paragon of script writing] either.But his dragging of this young woman only serves to hurt his cause. An US vs THEM mentality works when all the workers, Writers, Actors, Production staff, all band together and support one another toward better working conditions for all.
This is such a stupid thing to focus on. Suck it up and focus on the real issues.
Don’t reference Friends in a conversation about good writing.
.
After seeing Ortega’s spiritless performance in Scream VI I’m not entirely convinced the writing was the problem with Wednesday.
And yet the movie was a hit thanks to her and she got a lot of praise for her performance. Nice try
The writing in that movie was terrible as well.
I thought she was good in X (the only thing I’ve seen her in).
I think she particularly objected to Wednesday reacting in stereotypical teenage girl ways to the love triangle stuff which she correctly identified as the weak point of the season & a betrayal of the character. The writers should appreciate her help fixing that frankly
No one objected to her doing that. Writers and actors on shows like Wednesday routinely collaborate and expect those types of interactions. They objected to her bashing her coworkers publicly.
“I think she changed a thing in the show that isn’t in the show that she didn’t mention. And if she did change those things, then good for her!”
This is not the first article about the lines being changed.
Jenna was warning the writers that the whole love triangle was a huge mistake and she was right. It hurt the show a lot.
My takeaway from that podcast was that Jenna Ortega felt like a lot of weight was on her shoulders to manage all aspects of the project. She should absolutely feel empowered to voice her opinion and talk to the writers. But talking about how the writing was so bad you had to rewrite it in the moment or skip entire scenes isn’t going to endear you to the rest of the team on a show. Beyond that, it also likely is why she felt so incredibly stressed out by the experience. There are ways to navigate not liking the writing or wanting changes that don’t involve a 20 year old actress with no writing experience having to make up all her lines. Alternatively, she might have been overstating what happened.
It’s also my understanding that she was told she didn’t need to learn the cello &c for the role, but she went ahead and squeezed all of that into her schedule anyway.
I think that is what rings a little false about her discussing the stress. It’s great to be vocal and the world is FULL of actors who go real far in their prep and their method and all that – Jeremy Strong, I’m looking at you.But this sounds like someone who maybe can’t yet distinguish between what is needed for a role, what will make a role feel more authentic and what is feasible for their time.She should not be crying every night because she’s overworked, but that’s a place where her “people” need to step in and make sure she’s focusing on what’s most important to her success. It doesn’t seem like it was demanded of her.
Nobody needs to learn the cello. I’m good friends with a cellist and she agrees.
We didn’t really see the season she “fixed”. All in all, it’s a hopelessly insulting and unprofessional way to go about things, even if randos on the internet cheer on how you used your star power to belittle the other labor.
Aren’t they just making snarky one-liners? AV Club wouldn’t know anything about that.
When productions resume, she’d be wise to read through any scripts to make sure her character won’t be near any elevator shafts.
How about we get some jokes off about that goofy bowtie…thing?
poor millionaire Jenna Ortega, those underpaid people said a mean thing about her after she said mean things about them
“She was either explicitly or implicitly (by way of serious pressure for a young woman to be carrying an entire production) encouraged to work even while sick, an illness that turned out to be COVID-19.”
If you’re going to fabricate a story that she was forced to work sick you probably shouldn’t link to YOUR OWN ARTICLE that says she was sent home as soon as she tested positive.
I’m sorry, don’t actors do this shit all of the time on set. It’s almost like the writers have decided they’re going to use a popular young woman as a punching bag instead of literally anything that’s the actual problem.
Joey Tribianni has received the same criticism.
You’d think the heir to the Ortega Taco Kit fortune* would be more in touch with the Everyman.
*I made this up.
I hear that stuff is made in NEW YORK CITY!!!
New York City?!? Get a rope.
NEW YORK CITY?!
“Git a rope.”
somewhere between there and the moon…
Wasn’t that the Pace salsa gimmick?
Jenna Ortega made herself a target for these comments when she went out of her way to shit on the writers who helped craft an incredibly successful show she was a part of. Jenna would have you believe she was carrying everyone’s weight on that production.
“Writers took umbrage with this omission at the time”Is that supposed to be “admission”?
Ithink they were attempting to give an example of the poor writing Ortega was referencing.
Man, if this is the biggest controversy Jenna Ortega will have, she is doing amazing.
Yeah, but it’s the kind of controversy that could make her less desirable to casting her.
I’m not sure why the writers are so mad about her helping with scripts… it evidently worked since the show is wildly popular.
I love how this entire…”spat” seems so minor, yet this article makes it into a big deal. The guy who did the sign made a joke sign (about a show he had no relation to), but I doubt it’s one of the reasons he’s picketing. Ortega (probably) did some good on-the-fly rewriting of the script. What’s the issue here exactly? Or is this just to feed more clicks?Also, literally in the tweet the article quotes:
Yesterday this network ran an article about how fashion at The Met was a sign of the troubles that lead to the writer strike.So my guess is they took a popular current actress (Ortega) a current event (the writer strike) and threw them in the blender.The fact she was also at the Met Gala (and thus on their radar) probably helped.
So many journalists and bloggers defend keeping their Twitter accounts as being necessary to do their job, but then I see articles like this and wonder if we as readers would get better content of writers weren’t allowed to use Twitter to create stories.
Yep. It’s also enabling these writers bloggers to be lazy. No point in contacting the writer who wrote the sign I guess. That’s for actual journalists! Nevermind the fact that “punch up” reads more like self-deprecating humor than hostility at Ortega.
Okay yeah but if the AV Club intentionally misunderstands this and people click because they’re mad on behalf of a popular actor, maybe some silicon valley dipshit can make a few bucks. Just ignore that this might turn people against workers asking for basic concessions
That is true. Gotta make these articles spicy so Jim Spanfeller’s personal allowance for GrubHub’d Cracker Barrel Grits stays in the green.
Maybe Jenna Ortega should get a job as a writer if she thinks she knows better than they do how to do their jobs. Just shut up and say your lines. Who do you think you are?
Jenna is the one who saved Wednesday from being a unwatchable garbage. So much so that the show runners are praising her work ethic
Praise be to the almighty show runners!
Yep because there is nothing I love more then seeing an actor so removed from the material that they just “Just shut up and say your lines”. I am not saying she should shit on the writers but as an actor she should have input as well.
Shutting up and saying the lines is literally what actors do for a living. Some are just better at it than others. A good actor should be able to see a script and then say the line in whatever convincing emotion, inflection, etc. is needed/called for.
“eight months of non-stop work in which she was not only acting for 12-14 hours a day”
This timeline is crazy if true. The entire season was a little over 400 minutes. 12 hours/day x 60 minutes/hour x 5 days/week x 4.33 weeks/month x 8 months = 124,704 minutes to produce 400 minutes of content, over 300 minutes for every minute on screen.And that’s ignoring that she’s not in 100% of the scenes, that it could be 14 hours instead of 12, and she mentioned doing 6 days some of the weeks.
Gilmore Girls was notorious for having 16 hour days for days and days in a row…there was apparently barely time to leave sleep and come back at times…and this was for a show where all they did was stand around and talk and shot on a lot in a totally controlled environment. TV production schedules are fucking brutal sometimes.
Gilmore girls had two main stars and they did not apparer on screen for almost every scene.
I think of Mark Harmon getting Donald Bellisario booted off running NCIS because the round-the-clock schedule was absolutely hellacious to where Harmon basically went to brass and said “Him or me”.
Getting roughly 5 minutes of footage per day is pretty normal.But let’s be honest… she was not “acting” for 12 to 14 hours a day. She may have had to be on set that long, but a significant amount of that time was spent in her trailer.
practicing her cello.
..for no particularly compelling reason known to anyone but herself.
maybe she likes it. I bet that vibrations betwixt your legs feels good.
5 hours for a minute of screentime… tracks. Old school network shows usually shoot 7-9 day episodes, which translates to 84-108 hours for 42 minutes of screentime or 2-2.5 hours a minute. For a streamer to shoot twice that long makes perfect sense to me.A tentpole feature (ie, Avengers) will shoot for six months of 12-14 hour days, sometimes more. 180 days x 12 hour days = 2,160 hours… for a 2.5 hour movie.
Filmmaking is not a speedy process.
She’s finished in Hollywood. Next step: Brazzers!
Pig.
I loved when she said that just because it was soooo stupid and bad for her career. I’m a hater!
Well you know there are writers, and there are good writers. All are on strike.
Writers took umbrage with this omission at the time
*admission
HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST A CORRECTION!
Maybe this is in reference to the omission of editors from this website
Just so I’m clear, we’re supposed to feel sorry for someone who had to work 12-14 hour days while juggling other activities and who was expected to perform even when not 100% well all the while making $20k-$60k per episode?
You are not “supposed” to feel anything. It’s called context.
Actors and Actresses have changed lines before and done some improv. The script is not a set in stone matter, and there should be some wiggle room in the creative process and collaboration between the writers and the cast.
But bad writing DOES happen, and sometimes an actor/actress has a better ‘feel’ for the character than the writers do. For the writers to be attacking Ortega for this, just undermines their cause entirely.
“Ultimately, though Ortega could have chosen her words more wisely (or at least been more discerning about sharing them), the entity responsible for all of this is Netflix. After all, the notoriously poor conditions for writers at that streamer are surely not conducive to creating the best work, which is one of the issues WGA is protesting. If Hollywood treated its writers fairly, perhaps the Wednesday set would be much more harmonious.”That’s a flex huh? It’s all Netflix’s fault, not the ego of some actor. Got it. Thanks.
I mean… writers don’t get paid by the actor’s ego, so…
The situation is likely more nuanced, but the connection to TV writers’ complaints is not unreasonable. One of the big ones is mini-rooms, where one group of writers comes up with the storylines and a separate group actually writes the scripts, which I think is done to avoid paying at staff writer rates. Things probably get lost in the process of moving storylines from one group to the other, so you have people writing scripts for stories they don’t quite understand. Another complaint is writers getting siloed instead of getting opportunities to work on the set and see the process of making a show—experience which could improve quality if the writers can better see what does and doesn’t work and adjust as needed.
Nice work AV Club– 11,000 signs and you grab 4-5 to make a headline diminishing the strike for a couple clicks. Hope you’re proud.
It’s important that any shred of dignity this site had is thrown out the window so venture capitalist ghouls can profit off of manufactured rage against workers striking for any fairness in their work
WITHOUT WRITERS THERE WOULD BE NO TERRIBLE FUCKING SCRIPTS FOR ACTORS TO FIX
I really support the WGA, and her comments were probably not the most PR-friendly …. but the writing on that show is fucking awful and she’s 100% right. Defend writers, not bad writing.
Wow AVClub, the strike is only two days old and you have already ran out of anything important to report about it.
It could be worse. This is what happens when you piss of the writers:
I think I heard that when Ed Norton was dating Salma Hayek he did an entire rewrite of “Frida” uncredited and for free. Also one of the rules is or was that you get script attribution if you have written some percentage of the script, so that incentivizes rewriters to rewrite what need not be rewritten. Many scripts in Hollywood have passed through hundreds of hands and studios keep stables of staff writers for rewrites and punch ups, and they call in or send the script to random comedians for extra jokes and punch ups (I think Patton Oswalt talked about this process at one point). In short, pretending every line in a show is sacrosanct is horseshit. Nobody is calling out mumblecore movies or Larry David for not using a script, or anybody who directed Robin Williams for letting him riff or Judd Apatow for including (gasp) unscripted scenes in movies. Further, pretending you have violated some kind of agreement with the universe when you acknowledge the writing on your show is shitty is also horseshit. From everything I’ve heard this was a cookie-cutter Harry Potter knock off with queerbaiting (and not just from CineCraft saying the same thing)Jenna Ortega has not said anything against the writers’ strike, associating her with opposition to the strike is over the line; this is redolent of “actors are dumb apes until we give them things to say” as if she could not be credited as a writer on the show; and it’s a very smug looking white guy punching out at a 21 year-old. Okay rant done, but associating somebody with opposition to a strike is really not cool.
Sounds like something Ed Norton would do.
My understanding of working with Norton is that he’s very controlling and pushy, and it is particularly frustrating because he’s very smart and usually right.
I think this whole thing is a non-story. But if you’re so concerned about the writing on a show you signed a contract to be on to the point that you’re saying you had to rewrite scenes to make it better then demand scripts upfront or script approval. If you saw scripts before signing your contract then demand changes be made before signing said contract.If you’re not a big enough star with enough clout to make those demands then either don’t take the part if you think you might take issue with the writing or shut up until you do have the clout for script approval.But seriously, if she saw any of the scripts before signing on, had problems with them and kept her mouth shut and still signed on then that’s on her. If she saw nothing and was disappointed in the writing then lesson learned, be more choosy in your roles and who you work with.
I get where you’re coming from, but every time the writers strike, you see productions try to get around the strike by claiming that the fact that what wound up on screen wasn’t the same as the last script submitted before the deadline wasn’t a scab rewriting the script, but rather actors spontaneously ad-libbing new lines, sometimes entire new storylines. So it does make some sense to take a bit of aim at someone who famously bragged about their superior ad-libs and throw out the idea that if actors do that now, during the strike, maybe that’s scab work and union breaking?
Also, since you bring up Norton, I think you’ve got the rewriting issue wrong. The screenwriters famously make it difficult to get credit for rewrites (typically because of fear of directors making enough changes to claim screenwriting credit for themselves. Most script doctors go uncredited. Typically the rules are that the rewriter can’t just get credit by making changes, but that the changes have to be substantial and structural—stuff like writing new scenes and storylines, not simply punching up the writing in the scenes that are already in the script. Norton ran into this when he lost a screenwriting arbitration for Incredible Hulk. According to him, he rewrote something like 90% of the lines of dialogue in the movie. But because he did it late in the process, after sets had been built, locations scouted, effect shots previsualized, and actors cast, he had to work within the basic structure the screenplay already had, and the arbitration panel said that the rewriting he did wasn’t enough for him to get credit.
I think we both probably have the rewriting issue halfway wrong: I definitely did not say that punch ups get you screenwriting credit, but there is still an incentive to change things that don’t need to be changed to get your name on it.Re: ad-libbing being scab work in a way, sure (not sure why you replied twice to the same comment)! But for example, somebody on fb replied to something about this with “Way to take the side of the millionaire actor over the striking writers”–in other words, people (even if they are idiots) might associate Ortega with being anti-strike which could hurt her career. That’s the part that gets me about this…if somebody ever associated me with strikebreakers in any way I would be totally furious.
I responded twice because your Ed Norton comment tickled a memory I didn’t have access to until a few minutes after I responded, and I worried that the editing window might close before I could add it to my first comment.If Ortega is worried about being perceived as anti-union, she can easily fix that by taking a few turns walking the WGA picket line. It’s a shame for her to be a face of this, although it’s not like it’s coming from nowhere: she threw the writers on her show under the bus pretty hard and when you do that, there are going to be hard feelings. Also, the stuff she describes doing in those comments is exactly what a lot of productions are going to be asking their actors to do in the comings months, as the studios try to keep productions going without union writers.The whole thing where they give the striking writers space to write something on their placards is probably a poor decision, since the personalized messages tend to be poorly written and excessively petty. Regardless of that, I think that if the strike is going to succeed, they need a lot of people in Hollywood, including actors, to internalize the message that rewriting is writing, particularly since streamers have reportedly stockpiled unproduced scripts in anticipation of a strike.
I think her team is aware that if she goes now she may be confronted and harassed…passive aggressive “invitations” are not very inviting. Also, even if female writers took it up, it was conspicuously middle aged white men who first decided to call her out and call her “entitled” because the scripts on her show sucked and she made them better.
I feel like that’s the least of her concerns. WGA has sites they’re picketing in at least three cities I’ve heard of. I’d try to avoid any sites where the writers on her show are picketing and maybe even the guys who issued the “invitations” on social media, but any PR person worth a damn should be able to reach out to someone friendly at the guild to say that Ortega wants to support the strike, and asking them where and when they could use her on the picket line. And I’m pretty sure if it’s handled correctly the WGA will make very certain that the stuff you’re worried about doesn’t happen, because they really really want the press attention that actors on the picket line bring, and if the headline they get from her appearance is “Screenwriting Meanies Make Jenna Ortega Cry,” that’s horrible press for them and a bit like spraying Celebrities Begone on all their picket sites.Regardless of whether the invites were genuine (and I think some of them were) the best way to approach them is head-on. The only exception would be if she does not, in fact, support the strike. But if she does–at all–she should show up on the line to shut these guys up.
Use more buzzwords. It comes off really intelligently.
And this is probably why you saw Leno handing out doughnuts on the first day. The old ones who are also assholes know the writers can wreck them, she is too new to know but yeah she probably should at least make an appearance to help show support.
Funny, no one seems to chide Harrison Ford for is handwrittten comments on the Raiders script. I guess it’s just because he’s such a “maverick”, huh.
Mary Kate, your editors are really going for that SEO for right-wing CHUDs, are you cool with that? The difference in tone of your article compared to the baiting headline is pretty heinous. Eventually management is going to get their wish and the comments section is going to be overrun with anti-woke dicks, is that the kind of site you want to be a part of?
I probably would have called this “teasing” instead of scapegoating. I didn’t see any writers blaming Ortega for the conditions that led to the strike, and I didn’t see any executives blaming Ortega for the strike. Feels like yet another article trying to wring maximum outrage from innocuous tweets.
I probably would have called this “teasing” instead of scapegoating. I didn’t see any writers blaming Ortega for the conditions that led to the strike, and I didn’t see any executives blaming Ortega for the strike. Feels like yet another article trying to wring maximum outrage from innocuous tweets.
yeah but what if you want to write a dishonest article that helps pit regular people against workers striking for very basic compensation?
This article is a pretty shameless framing of harmless, gentle jokes to try to get the public against organized labour and onto the side of people engaging in the exploitation of workers. This is pretty awful and I hope you rethink this!
I doubt there was any thinking of what effect the article might have other than getting clicks.
It’s relatively minor and I realize this is pedantic, but how are they scapegoating Ortega? It doesn’t appear she’s being blamed for anything, or that they’re trying to use her as an excuse for their poor performance. They’re making fun of her, sure, but she’s not being scapegoated for anything.
From what we’ve learned she put her foot down on and changed, her instincts were right.Yeah, she’s not the most tactful in how she handled herself, but actors being protective of their characters is not a new thing. And it sounds like the writers really didn’t have any clue how to write Wednesday.
She’s is not being scapegoated. They’re cracking jokes about things she said.Nevertheless, Ortega’s tales from the Wednesday set actually illuminate how even a project’s lead actor can be overworked and ill-used. The schedule was about eight months of non-stop work in which she was not only acting for 12-14 hours a day, but was also trying to fit in cello lessons to make her character more realistic. She was either explicitly or implicitly (by way of serious pressure for a young woman to be carrying an entire production) encouraged to work even while sick, an illness that turned out to be COVID-19. “I did not get any sleep. I pulled my hair out,” she recalled of the shoot at a Q&A for the series. “There’s so many FaceTime calls that my dad answered of me hysterically crying.”Which has nothing to do with the writers.
It would be a shame if the writers had Wednesday fall down an elevator shaft in season two.
The biggest issue with Ortega, is that she took a standout character, made her own, and then also seemed to start thinking she WAS this character and ignoring that it was written for her. It’s a really thin line between her having ownership of the part, and her taking credit for the character. I feel like we see this a lot with actors who do charactery roles, which I imagine is infuriating for the writers. Just because your character is written as smart, two steps ahead of the game, weird in the coolest way, etc., the audience starts to assume you yourself are all of these things when a lot of it may just be really good writing being done for you. Which doesn’t negate your talent, it’s just a weird leap I’ve seen a lot of actors make. Most of them, however, don’t take it as far as she has in terms of sort of implying she rewrote the script, and she (as the actor) had to “put her foot down” in a room of professional writers, etc. There are plenty of people that get a lot of credit for improvising and having ideas about characters they “own” without making it sound like they had to take over.
Literally where did she take credit for the character? “There were times on that set where I almost became unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” she said. “The script supervisor thought that I was like going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like ‘Wait, what happened to this scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.” She continues: “Now a lot of people know me from [Wednesday]. It’s not my proudest moment internally, which I think also adds an extra level of insecurity and stress, because it’s like, now I’m finally getting these offers or these places that I want but I don’t want to be known specifically for that.”
“Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all. Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about like, this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she said, ‘Oh, my God, I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.’”That is arguably an example of making a claim of knowing better than a writer, and honestly, she hadn’t been playing the character for that long. It’s not like this is someone with 5 years in a role complaining about a change. Arguably, this was how the show was written when she signed on.She also said this: “I grew very, very protective of her, but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”Implying that there was no arc until she demanded one. Could be true, but if I’m the writers, I can see where that would piss me off.
Arguably, this was how the show was written when she signed on.She said that when she signed on, the scripts hadn’t all been written yet and the show was supposed to have a darker tone. It happens all of the time, but because she’s so young, perhaps she didn’t know that when they began production.Most of the people attacking her are putting words in her mouth and grossly mischaracterizing what she said, and when pushed on it, they can’t back it up. What she said was insensitive and potentially insulting, but does not undermine writing as a profession or the right to fair compensation for their labor. It has nothing to do with why the writers are on strike.
It does undermine writers. She made some enemies. She can own that and go with it or she can learn from it. It’s never going to be a good look to talk about your VERY SUCCESSFUL show by categorizing it as being awful before you came along.I appreciate her passion, but there is a way to use your voice to work with a production. One of the things many of the writers that spoke out against her comments pointed out that she seems to think she can and should work unilaterally. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it should work and it devalues the writers – including the 5 women who were in the writers room – who are now likely looking for work under the guise of “their work was so bad an actress with limited experience had to rewrite it.” I don’t think Jenna Ortega respects writers based on her actions. If she wants to prove me wrong, she can go down to the line like many actors have and show support. That would change my mind on her comments.
I can understand how her comments undermine the writers who work on Wednesday, but I still don’t understand how it undermines the profession as a whole. Ultimately though, I’m not her. I don’t know her, or anyone close to her, so I can’t tell you what’s in her heart, or whether she respects writers in general. If you feel that she doesn’t respect writers, I can try to understand where you’re coming from, but I can’t change your mind.
Let’s start another rumor:
“Jenna Ortega can only read emojis!”
“The script said ‘eye-roll emoji’, but I put my foot down and said, no, it has to be ‘shrug emoji’.”
Is Jenna holding a family member hostage or something?
So these writers are on strike… because of method acting? WTF? whoever is using Ortega as their bullying scheme in this strike is both a snowflake and lacks any backbone whatsoever.
Gosh. I hope she survives!
I only watched the first episode of Wednesday, because I thought that the writing sucked.
Jenna Ortega is awesome. I support the WGA and the strike, but fuck those (specific) writers.
This is either apocryphal or I don’t want to look it up, but…. in the 30s Frank Capra was interviewed about his directing, and the “Capra touch” which made all his movies so wonderful. Capra went on and on without mentioning any screenwriters he’d worked with. After the interview came out, a writer – Robert Riskin, I would hope – sent him a package with 120 blank pages and the note “Frank – put your Capra Touch on that.”[I don’t know anything about Jenna Ortega and haven’t seen Wednesday yet. It’s usually the actors and the top directors who get asked about movies and shows, for better or worse. It really is possible that the scripts she was given were hackwork and she tried to fix them. Or not. Either way, she’s like 20 years old and I’m inclined to cut her some slack on this.]
Many years later, Roman Polanski would become known for his own, very different, Polanski Touch.
Jenna Ortega: “I got some notes on this script here.”
Roman Polanski: “Ok, we can discuss it, over Quaaludes, in my trailer!”
Unless you’re checking in from some 3rd world hellhole (sorry if you are) 20 is the age of majority and responsibility. She’s a big girl, her pants are big girl; so we can dispense with this poor little defenseless child getting punched down routine.
this article is a bit of a reach…
but i appreciate that the strike is getting coverage.
She’s a good actor but lately after Wednesday she has Butt implants and thinks she’s Kim Kardashian better than everyone and taking credit for writing what Wednesday did well rewritten it stop watching Kardashians Jenna or you will be hated within the next few years but for now the fans who will follow her everywhere get over it it’s her job to be liked if she wasn’t she wouldn’t get parts
This is a story about a couple of casual jokes about celebrities, published originally by anti union publications, and somehow picked up by AV Club. AV Club is now republishing anti union messaging. This might be your website’s darkest day, but the strike is long, and studios know exactly how to get publications like this to betray working people.
Hey, neat job just breathlessly reporting on a story clearly drummed up initially to make striking writers look bad. A little solidarity wouldn’t have hurt you.
uhhhh, I’m sorry, is this not a reprehensibly cheap and transparent ploy to frame the writer’s strike in a negative light? In what way is Ortega being “scapegoated”? Like, 3 signs referencing her comments that are all completely inoffensive and playful? Are we really supposed to think she’s the only actor being referenced in these picket signs, that this is now a major theme in this movement, that Ortega has become a symbol of pay inequity? In what world does this make any fucking sense and how in the hell are so many of you falling for it?
I fail to see what is unfortunate. She was a selfish, self-aggrandizing, unprofessional asshole who called out the very people who wrote the show that made her career take off, while also implying that she is better at their jobs than they are and is personally responsible for every single positive aspect of the show.Se 10p% deserves to be criticized and insulted. If you want to be an unprofessional and selfish diva, then prepare for the consequences.(Also, the attempts to portray her role as some sort of incredibly cruel hard labor are hilariously ridiculous and stupid.)
aw, the nerds are jealous of the hot girltale as old as time
The writing on Wednesday was still pretty bad. She is the only good thing about that show imo. Shitting on her is stupid and a distraction from the people really fucking shit up.
I support the strike, but the AV Club’s rah-rah position seems a little ironic given that it recently got nearly the entire staff to quit over a mandatory uncompensated relocation. At least some of this ire seems like it should be directed at your own parent company.
what are these folks gonna do, exactly? they are paid peanuts. most survive via their parents.
Given the general nature of this discussion, it seems like a few things about this situation can be true simultaneously:1. Jenny Ortega publicly slating the writers of her show and claiming she improved her dialogue through improv is, at very least, rather tactless and impolite of her.2. At the same time, bad-to-mediocre writers are not uncommon in the entertainment industry and her comments were relatively mild and specific, so acting like they were some kind of attack against the working rights of screenwriters or a devaluing of the entire profession of writing, as some here seem to be verging on, is at very least being somewhat precious if not outright histrionic. 3. As a collective, writers deserve fair pay and treatment in the work place.4. The AV Club is clearly trying to spin this storm in a teacup into something that will get them loads of clicks and comments (in which case, well done).
I totally support the Writers Guild, however, I am currently in season 7 of The Flash so…………………..
Obligatory:
Are they SCABS for tweeting? Surely tweets count as writing.
I feel like Ortega is insufferable. I feel like these writers are insufferable.
They aren’t, they are just stuck in an industry that treats them like dogshit every step of the way, with only the top making a good living and everybody else fighting for the scraps. You know, like the rest of society. But it’s fun to pick on people fighting for better I guess.
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No jokes allowed, serious strike signs only. That’s the law.
This article is a shockingly (and embarrassingly) disingenuous read of a single tongue-in-cheek sign. How can you treat a joke-y sign as if it were an entire statement from a group?
I guess she never saw that episode of Friends where Joey said he improvised a lot on the soap opera.
So, no one is allowed to criticize the work of anyone else due to unionization. Unionization cannot stay out of its own way to win back society.
Good lord, scapegoat is quite a strong word for one guy having a laugh with his sign
Ok WGA, let’s see you on the picket lines when accountants are renegotiating their rate as well. Accountants should get residuals as well, right?
People made some jokes on some signs. Running an article like this is needlessly fanning the flames of a non-feud and honestly, carrying water for people trying to make writers look bad. Fuck AVClub, this place has been a husk for a while now but I’m outta here.
I don’t know who all’s fault it is but I think we can all agree the writing in Wednesday was absolutely dreadful, right? Every conversation simply must reinforce how quirky and odd and iconoclastic and just plain not like other girls Wednesday is. It’s not as utterly insufferable as the constant affirmations in Moffat-era Doctor Who that The Doctor is, in fact, the protagonist and that he does, in fact intend to save the day, but it’s real close.What makes it all the weirder is that they set the show in a boarding school for the abnormal children of supernatural plutocrats, perhaps the only place where Wednesday would not stand out. I waited for the show to explore the idea that perhaps she was being a big old tryhard and would have to face the fact that even the most unusual person isn’t totally unique. Sadly it ended before getting around to that.
Marvel should reach out to Jenna for a role. DC, too.
This article is astroturfing. Do not fall for it
Whats interesting is nobody has called her out as a liar. There is no way she was rewriting the scripts and changing lines whenever she felt like it. Maybe if she was a big star she could have done that, but when she got this show she was a nobody. In hollywood random actors are not allowed to just change lines and scripts. Famous actors can, nobodies cannot.
Scapegoat. I don’t think this word means what you think it means.
1) Has AV Club finally lost any conception of ‘humor’? Do they really think the writers are expressing contempt for Ortega?2) It’s weird but telling that AV Club runs an unfair article that is critical of the WGA. It’s worth keeping in mind that current AV Club writers are scabs who took the jobs of unionized writers who were fired.
I fully support this that’s pretty obnoxious her stepping on her coworkers toes and shitting on her work. She better be careful. I’ve heard of many actors not getting work again cuz they bad mouth the set designer or whatever. I don’t care if you worship her this isn’t professional. Compare it to any other job and ask yourself if what she did was “stepping on toes”.
I’ve been a fan of her work so far but her comment wasnt appropriate. It’s insanely stuck up.
I’ve seen enough articles on “50 Amazing lines that actors improvised” to know that this is hardly the end of the world.Support the writers, but clearly Netflix is a mess. Ortega also talked about how she didn’t get any sleep for multiple days because they also had her choreograph her own dance. Basically, Netflix had her doing all sorts of stuff actors don’t normally do because they wouldn’t pay people whose job it is to do those things.