Jenna Ortega has expressed her wish for the next season of Netflix's Wednesday to contain more horror.
In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote the release of Scream VI and her role as Tara Carpenter, the actress revealed some of her intentions for the direction of the show's upcoming season, which was confirmed earlier this year by Netflix.
Speaking of how the forthcoming series is currently in the works, Ortega teases: “Everyone’s been really cool. I think we want to up the horror aspect a little bit, then get Wednesday out of the romantic situation and just let her be her own individual and fight her own crime.”
Recently, Ortega received criticism over her approach to playing Wednesday, which she discussed during an appearance on the Armchair Expert podcast, hosted by Dax Shepard.
The actress claimed to have made multiple impromptu changes to the script without the permission of the writers, so that a more accurate portrayal of Wednesday Addams would be represented.
Noting that she frequently would come across as "unprofessional" and go entirely against the creator's wishes who wanted to take Wednesday away from her macabre persona to fall more in line with the average teen, she said: “There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines … I would have to sit down with the writers, and they would be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.
“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 like, this 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, there’s no way.’"
Of why she was so passionate about portraying Wednesday accurately, she remarked: "I grew very, very protective of her, but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”
Her comments sparked backlash from the online sphere, with listeners suggesting that her approach came off as if she "knew better" than the show's director, Tim Burton, and its creators. Many however were quick to come to her defence, stating that Ortega, as a teenager herself at the time of filming, was in a better position to understand the character than the male writers behind the script.
Confirming the return of Wednesday earlier this year, co-showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough previously told Tudum: “We can’t wait to dive headfirst into another season and explore the kooky, spooky world of Nevermore. We just need to make sure Wednesday hasn’t emptied the pool first.
“It’s been incredible to create a show that’s connected with people across the world,” they added. “We’re thrilled to continue Wednesday’s torturous journey into Season 2.”
Watch Jenna Ortega's appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon below:
