Jenna Ortega tried to turn down Wednesday multiple times
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega says she really didn't want to take on another television role when Tim Burton's Netflix series came along
Aux News Jenna Ortega
Jenna Ortega’s recent strategy, as it pertains to Wednesday, is brutal honesty. It seems she’s earned the right: The show is a smash success and her Scream sequel is also garnering critical acclaim, making her one of the most in-demand actors in Young Hollywood. Yet perhaps none of this would ever have happened if she had followed her first instinct, which was to turn the Netflix series down.
Asked by The Times UK whether she’d actively pursued the role, Ortega admitted, “No, I didn’t. I got the email, passed on it.” She explained, “I had done so much TV in my life, all I’ve ever wanted to do is film. When I first started acting, I don’t want to say nobody believed in me, but at the same time nobody believed in me. You have to prove yourself. It’s only in the last three or four years that I’ve been able to start going up for film. I was scared that by signing on to another television show it could prevent me from doing other jobs I really wanted and cared about. The only reason I went back is because Tim [Burton, director and executive producer of Wednesday] is such a legend, and we just happened to get along very well. But even then I said, ‘Ah, no—I think I’m OK,’ a couple [more] times.”
When she did finally acquiesce, Ortega assumed the series “wasn’t going to be watched,” she claimed, thinking “it will be a nice little gem that someone finds.” Instead, the show became a colossal hit, something the star has struggled with, as she recently shared on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast.
Part of the struggle is that the series is “not my proudest moment internally,” she said on the podcast, adding she doesn’t “want to be known specifically for” Wednesday. (Ortega confessed to re-writing lines when she felt the script didn’t serve her character.) Another part of the struggle is that “You begin to feel a bit like a billboard, and there’s a part of me that almost feels like I’ve succumbed to this commercial version and kind of given up on my own personal interests.” Perhaps she should have stuck to her guns about avoiding Wednesday after all?
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Seems completely reasonable. I wonder how people are going to spin this into her being ungrateful.
It’ll be unremarked for a while. In about 6-8 months when the wheel turns and entertainment writers decide it’s time to tear her down, it’ll be excavated by people who “never liked her attitude.”
“I wonder how people are going to spin this into her being ungrateful.”
Maybe they’re going to call her out on “nobody believed in me, waaaaaa” despite the fact that she’s worked consistently since starting her career.
From 2014-2019 she had recurring roles on two TV shows, lead roles on three shows, lead voice roles on two more series and one TV movie and roles in four other movies.
But yeah, nobody believed in poor itty bitty baby Jenna.
Twat.
The content is reasonable. The headline tries to spin it.
She has been pretty negative and dismissive about aspects of the show and her experience with it whenever asked about it. It’s sad that she appeared to put in so much effort and does not look back on it fondly for something that clearly resonated with audiences.The anecdotes about her changing lines and pushing for changes are a good thing. She shouldn’t have to justify those and they appeared to have made the show better.Still sad that she doesn’t appear to be proud of her work.
You can say you tweaked lines or plused things a little… but publicly badmouthing your co-workers work, which is kinda a dick move. A lot of actors do the equivalent of hanging a few nice pictures in the living room and claiming credit for the whole damn house. Yeah, the final presentation is important but there’s a fuckton of hard planning and building work that gets done before you’re tweaking the details.
I see your point, but she isn’t necessary bad mouthing anyone, but sharing that her experience was bad because of the way it made her feel. One of the things she allegedly changed was dropping line where Wednesday said something along the lines of “OMG, I love it. What’s wrong with me?” While it might have played decently for the laugh, it would be wildly out of character. It seems like the director probably agreed, since it was changed.There’s lots of actors that tweak lines during production and if it works, they are considered genius. It’s weird to characterize her of doing the same thing as a “dick move”.She apparently didn’t want to do it. Let others coerce her into it and is now unhappy that she ever did it. I still stand by the idea that it is sad she is disappointed in being involved with something that turned out pretty good and she did well.Hopefully she’ll find a way to not let people talk her into doing something she doesn’t want to do in the future.
The issue isn’t tweaking lines. I actually usually love it when an actor asks to change a line, most of the time it’s an improvement. The problem is framing it as her saving a disastrous script which made no sense and had no character arcs. Even if that’s true, maybe don’t insult coworkers publicly. Especially not on an ongoing job like TV.
where is she badmouthing anyone
“Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all,”
“You can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc”Etc.You don’t think that’s insulting to the writers? If an actor I worked with said that publicly, I’d be pretty pissed.
I had never heard of her before that show, so if others are like me, they will wonder why an unknown would be repeatedly turning down work.
There are already plenty of people calling her “entitled” or “toxic”, because being honest and wanting the best for one’s own career and future is automatically “toxic”, apparently.
I think her attitude is partly what made her right for Wednesday, she has a self-confidence that borders on being hostile
I’m glad she signed on. I didn’t like the show, but she was good as Wednesday and from the other article about her pushing back on the script, I think she had a much better take on the character than the show runners. All they seemed to have wanted was a CW/Vampire Academy/Harry Potter knock-off wearing an Addams Family suit.
She’s not wrong about wanting to do film instead. They asked Pierce Brosnan to be James Bond when Roger Moore finally hung it up but he was committed to Remington Steele.
Which hurt quite a bit more than it sounds, as his wife (who’d been a Bond girl herself in For Your Eyes Only) had always thought he’d be great for the role, and this meant she didn’t live to see it.
Yeah, I only just learned that when I was looking up to spell his name correctly.
Not only that, but STEELE had been cancelled and Brosnan was theoretically free to do Bond. But the Bond folks’ interest in him lent him some “heat,” so the network un-cancelled STEELE and he was compelled to do another season before it was cancelled, again.
That he got to do several Bonds years later is a nice happy ending, no doubt. But it had to suck at the time.
One of the nice things about streaming shows is that they are not as locked into the 24 episodes a year, every year model. Less hours per year, and if your actors are working elsewhere, move it up or move it back. This is probably one of the reasons you get bigger stars on streaming TV now, less lock in and more flexibility with release.
She really comes across as insufferable. She doesn’t have nearly the resume/credits to back it up yet either.
“Jenna Ortega tried to turn down Wednesday multiple times”Pardon me for asking this but…TURN DOWN FOR WHAT?
*whispers into mike* Take the shot.
I like the fact that she’s open about the show being a) too formulaic, b) lacking the artistry that she signed up for and c) not something she’d watch. I haven’t seen it because I kept hearing she was great in it and everything else was pretty generic (and I’ve seen enough shows/films like that) and the type of integrity she seems to demonstrate in interviews really speaks to why she’s a good actor.
I’m neutral on Adams Family but it IS essentially a liveaction cartoon franchise and some actors, I imagine, aren’t into that. Her perogative….
Tommy Lee Jones would not sanction it.
“When I first started acting, I don’t want to say nobody believed in me, but at the same time nobody believed in me.”
Yeah, nobody believed in you, which probably explains why you got two film roles in your first active year, three TV roles in the same period, followed by recurring roles in two series the next year, then two leading TV roles in the following year.
Imagine what your career would’ve been like if ANYONE believed in you.
You’ve worked more consistently than anyone since you started acting, but nobody believed in you, right? You’re not full of shit at ALL.
Boy, she went Harrison Ford on this show in record time, didn’t she?
You should see her crash a plane.
Never tell her the odds!
Another day, another batch of articles about Jenna Ortega. Gotta hit that quota!Whether it’s “Don’t Worry Darling”, or Avatar 2, gotta churn it out!
It’s almost like this website that provides you with free content needs to churn out popular topics in order to remain operational.
I like her more every day
Doesn’t change the fact her head is far too big for her body.
Remember: five no’s and a yes…means yes.
So I guess being Wednesday is like being a king or w/e, the absolute best ones don’t want the job.
Gotta love how Jenna’s brutal honesty is being spun by others as “toxic” or “entitled” and people are clutching their pearls in over-exaggerated shock and unjustified dismay. How dare a young actress demand better for herself, or want control over her own career and destiny? Why, the very NERVE of this upstart!!!
She was playing the titular character in “Wednesday”; all eyes were on her to carry on the legacy of this Addams Family character in the style originally made popular by her predecessor (and co-star), Christina Ricci. The series’ success or failure rode squarely on her shoulders. I think she had every right to push back at the writers overseeing the show when they tried to shoehorn in their cookie-cutter YA-paranormal tropes. Sadly, she couldn’t stop all of them (namely the unnecessary romantic triangle), but she worked hard to hold true to the essence of the character. She learned how to fence and how to play the cello just for the role, pushing herself to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I think she’s due the opportunity to reflect on what did and didn’t work about the show.Thankfully, she’s going to be an executive producer on Season 2, so she’ll have more creative control. That’s the smartest move she could have possibly made.
All of these halfwits whinging about her alleged “bad form” or lack of professionalism need to stop flapping their yaps. Their behavior towards her now just reeks of the “sour grapes” effect, whether they intend it that way or not.
Nobody would know her if she hadn’t been cast in that Netflix show, so yes, biting the hand that fed you.
Before Wednesday, she was in Iron Man 3, X, Insidious: Chapter 2, had already shot Scream (2022), was probably already set to return for Scream VI, had a prominent role on You, was on Jane The Virgin, and has more credits than some actors literally twice her age. But sure, “nobody” would know her if she hadn’t been cast in Wednesday.
So she is/was. Horror is not my thing. But sure, good luck to her.
She was really holding out for ‘Thursday’.