Famous actress Jenna Ortega admitted to frequently disregarding the writers’ ideas while filming the hit Netflix series “Wednesday.”
Ortega spoke about the way she took command of the titular character, Wednesday, during an episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast March 6. She told fans she didn’t feel her role was properly represented and forced a change.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on ‘Wednesday,’” Ortega said. “Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all.”
“There were times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines,” she continued.
Jenna Ortega will be an executive producer on ‘Wednesday’ Season 2. pic.twitter.com/YZQrQj3s9S
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) March 7, 2023
Ortega expressed apparent frustration over the idea of her character being misrepresented and misunderstood. “[Wednesday] being in a love triangle? It made no sense,” Ortega said as an example.
“The script supervisor thought I was going with something and then I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I’d have to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”
The famous actress spoke about how the sudden changes came about.
“When I read the entire series, I realized, ‘Oh, this is for younger audiences,’” Ortega said. “When I first signed onto the show, I didn’t have all the scripts. I thought it was going to be a lot darker.” (RELATED: Keanu Reeves Literally Took The Red Pill From ‘The Matrix’ Set)
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Ortega seemingly wanted to make her character more well-rounded and true-to-life.
“There was a line about a dress she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘Oh my god I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ I had to go, ‘No,'” she said.
“I grew very, very protective of her,” Ortega said about her character. “You can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”
“When you are little and say very morbid, offensive stuff, it’s funny and endearing. But then you become a teenager and it’s nasty and you know it. There’s less of an excuse,” she continued.
“Wednesday” has earned rave reviews and is the second-biggest English-language series of all time for Netflix, according to Variety.