Jenna Ortega wasn’t thrilled with her Wednesday scripts: “There were times… where I just started changing lines”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on Wednesday," Jenna Ortega said recently.
Aux News Ortega
Despite her skillful penchant for taking on beloved IP, Scream VI and Wednesday star Jenna Ortega is still getting accustomed to the brighter—and sometimes harsher—spotlight that comes with leading a major franchise.
“You begin to feel a bit like a billboard,” Ortega shares in a new interview on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, “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.”
As far as the commercialization of her character goes, Ortega says starring in a show like Wednesday—a series she admits is “not typically the kind of TV that I would watch”—presented challenges she hadn’t encountered before. Namely, finding great success and recognition from a project she can’t truly say she’s proud of.
“I can’t watch my work, but I can go home from set and say ‘The scene that we shot today felt good.’” Ortega shares of her previous projects. “Wednesday, there was not a scene in that show that I went home and was like ‘Ok, that should be fine.’”
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.”
According to Ortega, when she first signed on for the show she thought it had a darker tone, but she didn’t have all the scripts yet. Once she began to see more clearly the trajectory of the series, she says she had to really push to make sure the series didn’t descend into treacly, formulaic territory.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on Wednesday,” Ortega recalls. “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 a 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.’”
At times, Ortega even took the initiative to improvise on set if it meant salvaging her vision of Wednesday, a character she admits she “grew very very protective of.”
“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.”
Ortega does opine that some of her distaste for the series comes from a place of imposter syndrome and difficulty in reflecting clearly on her own work. But even so, that doesn’t mean she’ll be tuning in to the final cut any time soon.
“God I want you to watch Wednesday,” Shepard, who himself loved the series, says at one point. “NO!” Ortega gasps.
130 Comments
I’m still baffled by why you would cast a Morticia and a Gomez with zero chemistry between the two. That’s a couple that suppose to be pure electricity together, wildly, deeply passionatly in love.The Gomez and Morticia we got? Total wet fish.
Each are great casting for their roles in isolation, guessing they didn’t screen test them together.
I had a similar thought. You’ve got Luiz Guzman? That guy’s nuts! He could do all kinds of interesting things with Gomez if you let him off the leash a little. Instead he just does the blandest, most one-dimensional version of Gomez we’ve seen.Similar with Fred Armisen for Fester, it seems all the writers could think to do was split his screen-time between being an exposition mule and “his superpower is electricity”.
The focus of the show was really Wednesday herself and not the family though, which makes sense. That’s also why I didn’t tune in, though. They’re interesting as an ensemble, I have no desire to focus on just one of them.
That was the joke of the original Charles Addams cartoons in the 50s – taking the routines and structure of a typical midcentury family but building the look and dialog around horror-movie tropes. I don’t really remember the original TV show, but the 90s movies took things a step further by suggesting that the family was more loving and healthy than the close-minded normies around them. (In that sense something like Broad City is actually a pretty good follow-up, where the main characters’ oddities are much healthier than the world they inhabit.) Once you strip away their absolute confidence, it’s not clear what the characters are.
I do remember that Gomez and Morticia were REALLY into each other in the TV show.
This was true in the ‘60s sitcom as well. Gomez and Morticia had relatively lustful attitudes towards each other – still pretty tame, considering the era, but they definitely seemed hornier than Lucy and Ricky or Jeannie and Major Nelson.
That was one of the other things that confused me about the show: why are they sending Wednesday to a school for outcasts and weirdos? The Adams NEVER saw themselves as the weird outcasts. It was everyone else that were the weird ones.
I think you bigger issue is that we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them. You can be passionate and loving without them being all over each other like they were in the 90’s films. But we didn’t really get to see much of anything with them, and they didn’t get to work with each other enough to develop much rapport.
I think they were just two available actors that look similar to the comics characters.
What’s that smell like fish-o-baby?
Catherine Zeta Jones could stare at door, and I’d feel the electricity. Are we all being nice in pretending the problem isn’t entirely Luis Guzman?
Agreed. They needed a Banderas or someone similarly charismatic. Guzman is great, but “Latin Lover” is not in his wheelhouse.
Their chemistry was fine to me.
Yeah, all the adults in general, with the exception of Ricci, were very poorly cast.
a series she admits is “not typically the kind of TV that I would watch”lol, teens and early 20s are insufferable
not sure what your problem is with an actor having preferences about what they like to watch. do you need a nap? are you just that special kind of dumbfuck that seems like they’ll die if they don’t complain out loud for others to hear every five minutes like some kind of embarrassing negativity-fueled shark?
Welcome to the internet!
Because it sounds like she’s saying “I’m better than the material”. And even it’s that’s true, it’s still a jerk thing to say.
Shes saying she doesn’t normally watch shitty TV. What’s wrong with that.Wednesday was a terribly written show, and it’s clearly hard for her to pretend it isn’t. It’s just a low-tier CW show with an Addams Family skin.
Wow…says more about your issues.
As were we all at that age
So glad no one stuck a mic in my face at 20yo…
My window of utter insufferability predated the internet which is a thing for which I will be forever grateful.
There’s probably a reason why no one did, clearly no one cares about what you think or have to say. Me thinks you think you are much more important than you actually are.
Eh, you’ve still got six years to prepare, by the sound of it.
Have fun in the greys where no one will read your messages!
his message made me laugh and he’s starred more than you lol
I starred them since you asked so nicely.
Lol I purposely took him out of the greys because your take is so stupid.
Whoa lots more people like his comment than yours! Lol I guess the consensus is that’s you’re the bitter and insufferable loser 🙂
lol that didn’t age great for you huh
Now tell us how no one wants to work these days
???? That doesn’t match my thoughts at all
I think she means she doesn’t usually watch crap, but is trying to be diplomatic about it.
Damn, the youths are salty about this one
You’re just a cunt.
I mention that teens and early 20s are insufferable and… a bunch of them show up to be insufferable
Yeah, I don’t think this is an impossibly egregious thing but on the other hand I have a hard time caring that a famous 20 y/o hasn’t yet been able to make their career entirely things they’re artistically passionate about.
so are middle aged internet commenters
7/10
Sorry the show that put you on the map is making you so unhappy. You sound like a really professional pleasant person to be around though.
Sounds like we might have been spared the “defrosting the ice queen” trope. The Addams Family can change from project to project, but the important thing is to make sure whatever characterization they’re given is relatively unmalleable. A Wednesday who begins expressing herself like Enid, no matter how close they get, is one that fails the Family. They’re macabre and individualistic. It’s a celebration of that, and pushing them toward “normal” is a betrayal endorsing conformity.
That’s the other thing that bugged the hell out of me with the show – the friction between Mother and Daughter spawned from Morticia forcing Wednesday into a mold. She would have never done that. She would have supported whatever direction Wednesday wanted to go with her life. The Addams are – first and foremost – a family unit bound by the kind of love that is not contingent on fitting in or operating within social scenes beyond their own. The writers totally didn’t get the premise.
That’s kind of what struck me reading about the show – part of the idea behind the Addams Family is the aesthetic, part of it is the friction between the Addamses and other folks, and the Addamses collective lack of self-consciousness holds the concept together. Now there’s nothing wrong with revising a 70-year-old concept, but there’s a question of when it turns into a different (and lesser) concept.
This is what happens to almost every older property these days, whether it be The Addams Family, or Star Trek, etc.
She would have supported whatever direction Wednesday wanted to go with her life.I don’t know entirely about that — there’s an episode of the TV show where Gomez is despondent over Pugsley joining the Boy Scouts and is not supportive at all of it.
That’s because it was the Boy Scouts. Scouting is the one exception to the Addams Family’s unconditional love and support.
Something else they forgot- or paid lip service to, without really showing- is that Wednesday is actually quite the prankster. There was not enough of this written into the character, but I would have loved to see it from Ortega
They wanted to do some sort of CW cross between Nancy Drew and Buffy, and got the bright idea to stick Wednesday Addams in there as the lead.
Good for her, this is a character that’s been around for 85 years and has a distinct personality. The writers don’t seem to get it, I almost wonder if anyone involved is really a fan of the Addams Family, or even the ‘90s movies. It’s like they think, oh yeah, she’s a weird goth girl and it’s just anything goes from there.
I’m glad that she liked the idea of the love triangle as much as most other people (you know…not at all)
The love triangle was idiotic & she managed to convey that Wednesday found it idiotic & annoying too, which almost made it work
That’s fine. So don’t take the f’ing role. Or talk to the writers BEFORE shooting. Don’t ad-lib on the day. It’s not “kinda unprofessional” it’s outright unprofessional, full stop. I’m all for performers having input on their dialogue or their character motivations or *whatever*. But it’s typically shitty Hollywood behavior to completely f’ing ignore the writers. You got a problem with them, TALK TO THEM. Without them, you have nothing you fucking spoiled brat. She can go take a long walk off a short pier with Jessica Alba.
Jeez
Go suck a dick. People can have opinions.
Well I certainly wouldn’t kick Bailey Jay or Emma Rose outta bed for eating crackers.As to opinions, I’m not saying she can’t. I’m saying that IF she doesn’t like the material she can have a conversation with the writers rather than pull some weasel shit and ad lib. It’s perfectly fine to disagree with your creative partners. It’s NOT fine to go behind their backs and do whatever the hell you want.
I see missing the point is a national pastime
it worked for her so settle down
Evidently she accepted the role based on earlier scripts and didn’t realize what material she would get later. To give a more extreme example of that kind of thing, TNT’s Snowpiercer adaptation kept the cast they contracted for a completely different concept of the show with a different pilot script, writer/showrunner and director.
Okay. That sucks. Still doesn’t justify the way she handled the situation. If she thought they pulled a bait and switch with the material she could have stepped back from the show and taken legal action. Breach of contract maybe. The right thing to do was NOT to try ad-libbing her way into a different show from the one she was hired for. Say the words or don’t. I would respect her for quitting. I would respect her for doing the work and critiquing the writing after. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the way Heigl handled her Grey’s displeasure. She did the professional thing of actually performing the material. Opinions may vary on how professional it was to shit-talk the material after, but I think that’s a better approach than, “Nah, I’m just gonna read the words *I* wrote.” Unless your director okays ad-libbing, don’t f’ing do it.There were just so many ways to handle the problem and she chose the one most disrespectful and unprofessional. But hey, she maybe complained herself into a producer position so kudos to her.
I don’t think it’s a breach of contract for actors to get scripts they haven’t already read as they continue on a show. On some shows there’s even secrecy around plot developments so actors aren’t given the final script until just before shooting.
Sure, but her contention was that the character was being taken in a direction she didn’t agree to when she signed on to the show. I’m not saying it would have been a winning case but it would have been less passive aggressive and shady than ad-libbing with her own material. Part of me suspects that she saw the creative input Mia Goth had on X and decided that was the way to go. Ignoring the fact that Goth co-wrote the film and as such had more of a right to control the narrative.
I get the sense that the creators of the show had a magical school show they couldn’t sell, then somehow got into a position to graft the Addams Family to their premise and shazam, we got Wednesday.
“Good for her”? Some actress publicly insults the her co-workers and smugly thinks she knows more than professionals about writing? Not good. Not good at all.
She was really good as Wednesday. She conveyed a lot with her eyes and posture and small movements. It reminds me of Michael Kitchen in Foyle’s War fighting also correctly to have as few lines as possible
I am sure the people she works with on this show really enjoy hearing how little respect she has for what they have put together. Yikes. She’s 20 years old and was a middling success until this show came around, but presents as if she is above it all.
20 years old, whining about being typecase when she is all of one season into her breakout role and making changes to the script on her own authority. she sounds like a real pain in the ass.
She really is a bright spot in an otherwise very mediocre show. I’m glad for her success, but I hope the show improves some.
Wow, she sounds like a real treat. Nothing like publicly calling out the writers on your show.
Wouldn’t that be the one show where you’re entitled to call out the writers?
“Entitled” is certainly the right word. Praise in public, criticize in private.
That’s waspy bullshit designed to enforce in-groups and insulate powerful people from criticism. If you don’t think someone you work with is pulling their weight, you should be able to voice your concerns. She’s not singling anyone out in particular, and her criticism is fair. The writers definitely don’t understand the character.
Maybe it’s not that the writers don’t understand the character, but that the writers were attempting to do something different with the character.
Whether it worked or not is subjective, but I think theres a difference between “not understanding” and “let’s do something different”.
There’s a point where “let’s do something different” just means “let’s exploit a popular IP because we own it.” Why shouldn’t Wednesday be a blonde? That’s something different.
Right, because screenwriters are definitely “powerful people” in the industry.
You’re thinking of movies. They are definitely powerful in TV. You might even say they “run the show.”
Oh, that’s fun! We’re going with that tone!See, there are staff writers, who don’t actually wield any power. And there are producers or executive producers, who do “run the show”. You’re thinking of the jargon title but that’s not how they get credited. Which is how they get paid.In a TV show, the actors perform the scripts that were written by the staff. It’s certainly true that SOME producers (or “showrunners”) will write a script for their show. And if you’re certain producers with huge egos and no sense of loyalty to your fellow craftspeople you will write ALL of the scripts! (Or maybe you let the staff write but take all the credit because you’re an asshole.)Ultimately my point is that Jenna Ortega is not the executive producer. And she’s not a staff writer. So organizationally she has no fucking *business* rewriting scripts. It’s well within expectations that IF she has a problem with the characterization or dialogue or whatever she can take it to the writers and they can discuss adjustments. But she should not be making those adjustments of her own volition. Because as much as she might THINK she “owns” the character, she doesn’t. And anyone here might agree with her assessment. Cool! Perfectly valid! But that has nothing to do with her behavior.Unless you have been encouraged to ad-lib or to give on-set notes by the producer of the show, say your lines and hit your marks and otherwise stfu.(And for the record, it’s entirely possible she may *become* a producer if it gets another season. Fun story: I used to be friends with someone who worked crew on Justified. When she first started Olyphant was still just talent. Eventually he became a producer on the show and that’s when he started fucking around with the scripts on set, creating a host of logistical problems for the production crew. I really like Olyphant personally but the stories she told about his frequent fucking up of her work day have colored my view of him.)ETA: I think maybe a wrong idea has been had about my position, incidentally. I have no problem with her saying *after the fact* that she didn’t agree with the writers’ decisions. That’s perfectly valid and I was supportive of Katherine Heigl’s behavior surrounding her displeasure with Grey’s Anatomy scripts. Because she still had the basic professional respect to perform the material. It might have been better for her to say something before episodes filmed but what she *didn’t* do was ad-lib out of pique.
I was talking more about her discussing her feelings on the podcast, and whether it’s appropriate or not. Her behaviour on set is another matter, although not unrelated.You are correct that organizationally Ortega has no business rewriting the scripts on set or otherwise. In a vaccuum that’s a solid argument for her just doing what she’s told. However, she’s the star, and the face of the series. If it does well, she does well. If it doesn’t do well, her career could suffer. She is identified with the show in a way the writers aren’t (by the general public at least). I didn’t know who she was before the show, and I only know now, because there’s so much press about it. I didn’t even watch more than one episode of the show, because despite her best efforts it’s still a bad representation of the character. It’s Riverdale bullshit for teenagers who don’t have an attachment to the IP.She says she thought the show had a darker tone when she signed on. Was she deceived, or was she just mistaken? She’s got a good streak going with this show, the Scream movies, and X. They’re all pretty big horror franchises helmed by heavy hitters. If she’s trying to be the new scream queen she doesn’t need kiddie bullshit on her resume.The writers will be fine if some kid shits on their work. If she tries to throw her weight around it won’t effect the hiring prospects of any of them. They probably think the same thing you do. People she wants to work with can take this two ways: 1. She’s difficult 2. She thinks Wednesday is crap and she spoke up.
A quick jaunt over to IMDB reveals that Olyphant became a producer on Justified in season 2, coincidentally the highest rated season of the show. I bet he was a pain in the ass, because he was trying to make a better show.
Sure, you can assume that “he was trying to make a better show.” But AGAIN, if the problem is with the material, talk to the writers beforehand. Don’t fuck up everyone else’s day because you have artistic concerns. Which might be entirely valid, but day of shoot is not the fucking time to bring it up.As the saying goes, “Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”Of course, he was the producer and star so he got his way 9 times out of 10.
Maybe he should have said something earlier (maybe he did but no one listened). But should he just let things be shit because it’s the polite thing to do? He was in the same situation as Ortega where he was the face of the show (and it’s probably the thing people identify him for more than anything else). He’s a little more invested in the show lining up with his own personal standards than a crew member or even a staff writer, because it reflects on him and his standards more.
There’s just so much assumption in this post. Who says the material was “shit”? The first season was quite good! I could *maybe* see him thinking that the procedural nature of the first season wasn’t as interesting as the serial nature of the subsequent seasons and that’s reasonable, but that’s also a conversation he would have to have well in advance because it’s going to affect the entire writing process. Based on what I was told by my friend, the changes Tim wanted were rarely about the quality of an episode and more about scenes that he thought would be interesting. And to his credit, I think that can be perfectly true! But even IF that’s true, “interesting” does not equal “important”, and just because you want to be “interesting” doesn’t mean that you have the right to fuck up a production day. Face of the show or not, you’re an *employee* of the show. And you have coworkers. Now I’ve read and watched interviews with him in the intervening years that indicate to me that he does very much respect his production crews. But those same interviews also indicate to me that he can be a little casual about his work environment. That’s fine on an interpersonal level but it’s not helpful when trying to complete tasks. And maybe you could argue (and I wouldn’t disagree) that production schedules on TV shows are a terrible grind and should allow more room for spontaneity or rewrites. But that wasn’t the situation at the time.I don’t even think Ortega has it wrong about the show itself. I’m not gonna weigh in having not seen it. I think there are a LOT of people, yourself included, who think that just because the show is “shit” it means she can walk all over the writers or production crew. And I’m being hyperbolic. She doesn’t strike me as cruel or thoughtless. What she’s saying makes me think she’s quite thoughtFUL. She didn’t agree with the writers about the character. Okay. YOU and others like you also don’t agree with the writers about the character. Also okay. Don’t fuck up the shoot because of it. Resolve the issues BEFORE. Or talk about them prior to an edit so maybe they can be addressed in post.FWIW, I can’t take this “face of the show” argument seriously. So fucking what? If that’s your problem as the performer, fucking QUIT. Or don’t take the job in the first place. The SHOW is what’s important, not you. Characters get recast all the time. No actor is more important than the show they are on. Would Buffy be as great without SMG? Maybe not. But Buffy is bigger than her.
I didn’t mean that Justified was actually shit, just that he shouldn’t let the quality suffer.You’re describing a perfect situation where everything CAN be solved with a quick chat with the writers beforehand. Sometimes things come up on set that weren’t apparent before. Regardless, if you think something isn’t working why should you remain silent?Ortega said she believed the show would have a darker tone when she signed on. I think it’s a much bigger problem for the writers and crew if their star quits during filming, and it’s certainly a much more unprofessional thing to do than change a few lines. I think most lead actors are at least as important as the show they’re on, if not moreso in some cases. Roseanne, Charlie Sheen, Suzanne Somers, the original Dukes, all got replaced and the shows suffered. There are exceptions like Law & Order or Cheers, but generally when the leads change the show tanks. You can usually stand to lose a supporting character, but a show like Seinfeld or Friends would have been over if any one of the ensemble had left.Ortega is the one that will be tied to the Wednesday character in the public’s mind for the rest of her career. The writers and crew won’t have that problem. It’s unlikely they’ll be in the public’s mind at all. Is this association going to be a positive one, and if it’s not, should she just obey the rules of decorum for the sake of it?
She doesn’t have to remain silent or just accept being associated with material she doesn’t like. But there are all sorts of alternate approaches to “Literally rewrite the show in the moment with an unsanctioned ad-lib.” This is a very specific remedy she took for which I have a very specific criticism.
Fair enough. I’m reading this as a last ditch effort to make the show better, and you’re reading it as an unprofessional way to address changes. We don’t really know the circumstances beyond what was said on the podcast (which I’m assuming neither of us actually listened to). My knee-jerk reaction is to support the person that thinks Wednesday sucks.
She says she expected the show to be darker but wouldn’t she have seen at least a show bible and/or pilot script? And she knew it was being produced by Tim Burton, who hasn’t been “dark” in decades. The showrunner are DC CW guys also not particularly known for “darkness”.So she was under a misapprehension. It happens, fair enough. Whose fault was that, though?And now I’m reading scuttlebutt that Millar and Gough are writing the Beetlejuice sequel she’s attached to. Is some of what she said a strategy to get more influence there?None of which surprises me when I consider that she worked on X with Mia Goth, who is an actual credited screenwriter. If that’s a path she wants to take, go for it! But don’t start down that path by throwing other writers under the bus.
Writers are ‘powerful people’…sure.Of course she can voice her concerns. She can voice them to the writers. she can voice them to the producers, and she can voice them to Netflix if she wants. But there’s no reason to do it publicly, especially because the writers have no way to defend themselves from the star.
Yep, this. I work in publishing, and every once in a while, something goes tits-up at the printer and a small number of books get shipped out with some of the pages in the wrong order. It’s incredibly embarrassing to everyone involved, but it doesn’t happen because the editors didn’t exercise enough quality control, or because the publisher cheaped out on an incompetent printer. It’s just a rare bit of bum luck.
But at one point at one publishing company I worked for, a few copies of an author’s book went out scrambled, and they decided the appropriate course of action would be to call us out for the error on Twitter. It’s not that they were wrong to be upset, but it was incredibly ungenerous for them to presume that they know enough to assign blame, and to make a big public stink about it instead of engaging privately with the people who’d been working with them for months to make their book a reality.“Something mildly shitty happened” should not be a justification for being an asshole to the people who labor, largely in anonymity, in the hopes of making you look good.
I don’t think these two situations are comparable. Pages out of order is a mistake. Writing a script that doesn’t serve a character well is an error in judgement. Posting a tweet blaming someone is different than responding to a question in a long form interview. Your situation sounds much more petty.
They’re not as powerful as lead actors, but they’re not exactly on the lowest rung. I just meant it generally though. I don’t think anyone needs to be protected here.She was asked about the show in an interview. I don’t think it’s out of line to voice your concerns without singling anyone out by name.
I think she could have made the same points more diplomatically. Perhaps posited that the writers were under pressure to water the character down.
Why should she lie about it? She’s the face of the show. It effects her most if the show sucks.
How is this a “waspy” thing?
In private. Not publicly
Trashing your co-workers in a public setting after the fact is not, in fact, “voicing your concerns”. It’s petty and unprofessional.
I don’t think she was trashing them. She says she disagreed with their take on the character. She never says they’re bad writers, only that she had a different take that was more in line with the established character. They are definitely hacks, though.
See, it’s convenient for your argument that you happen to agree with her position. Almost like there’s a bias here…
You’re correct. I suppose I’m saying the ends justify the means, although I’m not actually saying that, because I still think the show is garbage.
Lick that boot.
fuck that shit
I love it. At this point, they need her more than she needs them. We’re only a few bad Season 2 reviews away from “make this better or I walk.”
She’s entirely too young to get that attitude. Nobody wants to work with people like that
She should be kicked out.
She might just Dr. Drake Ramoray herself.
Too big to get kicked off on this show, but people that are thinking about hiring her for the next project will certainly remember.
Is refreshing to see the star of a crap show to not only be aware that its crap but to speak openly about that.
She seems to get the character more than the writers do. Basically what Henry Cavill was dealing with on The Witcher. Maybe it’s a Netflix thing
It sounds like before she went at it, the show’s premise was basically Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, which is to a certain kind of person one of the most terrifying horror movies of the 80s (I say with a wink and affectionately, but seriously)…if the writers were going to “She’s All That” Wednesday then the show would have sunk like a stone (the same writers who ripped off basically everything from Harry Potter for the show in the first place, so you know they suck). It is clear that Ortega is to credit for most of the success of the show, and that’s the way things are in TV sometimes, people have more power to control their shows sometimes for good sometimes not. She’s using her powers to defray the suckage, good for her.
I’m glad she’s confirmed for me that this show is not worth watching.
But she choreographed her own dumb dance! And plays the cello!
But tell me this, does someone piss in her face and then she says it’s fine because it’s sterile? Because she actually did that in The Babysitter: Killer Queen.
Well then give her the Daniel Day Lewis Award!
Didn’t that show get renewed? I’m surprised she’s talking shit about it in interviews.
Yeah, I think her agency is going to need to sit down with her and gently remind her that while she may be the (probably) irreplaceable star of this show, there’s a decent chance her future opportunities are going to be affected if she has more interviews like this.
I’m sure the optics of an interview like that will not burn any bridges for a 20 year old who is still relatively early in her career.
A year ago no one knew who Ortega was. Now you have articles about all the crap she’s encountered in her brief and illustrious career. We must be living in the age of Instagram and TikTok…
Yes, never before has an actor become famous after being the lead on a successful tv show
…yeah and?
Talk about biting the Thing hand that feeds you.
“You go girl! Speak your truth!”-Katherine Heigl
Unfortunately Heigl was right. She didn’t do it the right way, it would’ve been better to discuss her issues with the material (I assume you’re being “clever” about Grey’s and Knocked Up) privately and before filming, but she had valid complaints. And she was professional enough to perform the material as written.
Heigl was right (and I’m sure Ortega is as well) but the price of being critical of your employers in public is that it alienates both them and future employers. It’s kinda the same in every industry. Discretion, valour etc…
Agreed. As a strategy for long-term career growth it’s unwise. I just often see people use it as an example of her being “wrong” or “difficult”. And to my mind it’s way more “difficult” to screw with a shoot. She did the work.Not much I can do about the “wrong” shit. I mostly shrug in terms of the Grey’s storylines because that feels very subjective. When it gets used to talk about Knocked Up I get more testy. I love that movie but it’s fucking *undeniable* that she and Mann get treated as shrews and the guys are largely let off the hook.
Shonda Rhimes doesn’t seem to have thought the word “professional” would apply. And she isn’t the mean rich straight white male misogynist that the narrative says ruined her career.Listen, I’m not rooting for anyone’s career to be hurt. But I also don’t see the writers taking to social media to blast her performance on the show. Because that would be low-class.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shonda-rhimes-slams-katherine-heigl-in-new-interview/
This show sucked and still managed to be better than most of the Sabrina reboot and a lot of other shit.
I know they’re going to go back to Not Hogwarts and it saddens me. The whole premise was just so fucking terrible.
For the record, the Sabrina show was not a “reboot”. It was an adaptation of the comic book, which was itself a reboot of the Archie Comics character. The Melissa Joan Hart show was an adaptation of the original Archie character.You probably know that, but I think it’s important to be clear. Because part of the shit the Netflix show had to eat was that it was NOT the Melissa Joan Hart show. And that’s unfair. The Netflix show was bad for its very own reasons.(Incidentally, the comic is pretty great and written by the same guy who created the TV show, which I find a little confusing. How did he manage to get the comic so right and the show so very, very wrong? I feel the same about Riverdale. The updated Archie stuff in the comics is great but the show was some hot crazy trash.)
She is wildly unprofessional and just insulted the entire cast and crew of the show. I hope casting directors think twice about ever putting such an ungrateful and entitled person in another production.