Jenna Ortega has explained why she felt “patronised” while filming Wednesday.
The 22-year-old actor is set to return in season two of the Addams Family spin-off later this year, and she is getting candid about her feelings about the show, which became a Netflix blockbuster upon release.
In December 2022, the first season of Wednesday surpassed Stranger Things’s record as the platform’s most-watched title ever in a single week – and one week later, it broke its own record, amassing streams of more than 400 million hours in just seven days.
Ortega said the show’s stratospheric success led to an uncertain time in her life, stating in a new interview: “To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person.
“After the pressure, the attention – as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
But Scream and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice actor Ortega also struggled with the fact she had to wear a school uniform – a costume synonymous with the 15-year-old character who goes to boarding school.
“It’s always been really annoying, because you just don’t feel like you’re being taken seriously,” she said. “You know, it’s like how you’re dressed in the schoolgirl costume. There’s just something about it that’s very patronising. Also, when you’re short, people are already physically looking down on you.”
The actor continued: “I’m doing a show I’m going to be doing for years where I play a schoolgirl – but I’m also a young woman.”
Ortega highlighted a double standard in the industry’s treatment of women as opposed to men when it comes to career evolution.
“If girls don’t stay as this perfect image of how they were first introduced to you, then it’s ‘Ah, something’s wrong. She’s changed. She sold her soul.’
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“But you’re watching these women at the most pivotal times in their lives. They’re experimenting because that’s what you do.
Upon the announcement of Wednesday season two, which Ortea produces, she said: “Wednesday Addams is one of the coolest characters of all time, so to have gotten the opportunity to play her once was incredible, and then to be able to slip into the costume and tone again, it’s so much fun.
“She runs circles around everyone that she has a conversation with, so to play someone who’s so much more intelligent than you will ever be, it’s quite funny and strange and enjoyable.”
New cast additions in season two include Steve Buscemi, Lady Gaga and Joanna Lumley, who will play the mother of Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
Wednesday season two will be released in two parts. Part one will premiere on 6 August, with part two arriving on 3 September.
