Jenna Ortega Clarified What She Meant With Her ‘Rewriting’ Wednesday Comments
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If you find a way to rewind time back to March 2023, you'll find the internet inundated with headlines claiming Jenna Ortega basically "rewrote" a lot of her lines for season 1 of Netflix's hit show Wednesday.
During an appearance on Dax Shepard and Monica Padman's Armchair Expert podcast, Ortega gave out some ill-fated quotes where she claimed she was "almost unprofessional" on set as she would spend most of her time filming "changing lines" to better reflect what she believed was inauthentic for her character.
"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 said at the time.
The comments, which arrived just a couple of months before the start of the WGA writers' strike, inspired multiple memes from writers on strike. Now, in a new cover story with Vanity Fair, Ortega has clarified what she meant with those remarks, admitting she failed to make her point.
"To be fair," Ortega told VF, "I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I'm such a rambler." She added: "I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would've been received better."
"Everything that I said felt so magnified," Ortega continued. “It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself.”
Ortega also admitted the situation served as a reminder that "you're never going to please everybody," which, as a self-confessed people-pleaser, was "really hard" for her to grasp.
"I got sick of myself last year," Ortega added. "My face was everywhere…so it's like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too."
Related: Jenna Ortega’s Best Performances, Ranked
In the interview, Ortega also admitted her protectiveness over Wednesday as a character goes way back, revealing she even tried to join season 1 as a producer to have more of a say in what the character got up to, but her request was denied.
"I think it's natural to be fearful of signing your life away and wanting some sort of agency or wanting confirmation that your voice would be heard," she said. "I'm aware of my position as an actor. I know that I'm not in charge…. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what's going on behind the scenes because she's onscreen every second of the project."
Ortega added: “A lot of the work that I ended up doing” and "a lot of the conversations that I was having were more of a producer's conversations half the time." So, it comes as no surprise that she finally nagged the producer role for season 2, and she's "living for" all the feedback she gets to give as a producer.
Related: Wednesday Season 2 Drops Two Major Characters
Tim Burton, who executive produces the show and directed all eight episodes of season 1, clearly doesn't mind giving Ortega more power, as he told VF she could even "direct it if she wanted to."
"She's very direct. She's very no-nonsense, and I find that very refreshing and beautiful and artistic," Burton said. "I saw, from day one, she's very aware. She's more aware, sometimes, than I am." (Burton admitted it took him just five minutes to cast Ortega in the titular role, and he clearly enjoyed working with her as he swiftly tapped her for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in between Wednesday seasons.)
As for what to expect for season 2 of Netflix's Wednesday, producer Ortega teases the sophomore offering "is a little bit more horror-inspired" but not all the way gore because "there's six-year-olds watching."
Ortega also offered commentary on Percy Hynes White's exit from the show, admitting it was “a weird redirect, but we're introducing so many different characters that I think it kind of will get lost.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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