2022 was one of the best pop culture years in a long time. Horror fans got treated to well-crafted slashers like X, sci-fi lovers got the smart AppleTV series Severance, and everyone fell in love with Netflix‘s Wednesday. Now the writers of the Jenna Ortega series are talking about that thorny time when the star said exactly what she was thinking about the show.
In a September 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who also wrote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, shared what they really think about this awkward situation. Gough said “you have these young stars in the spotlight” and “They’re going to misstep. They’re going to say things.” He took an honest and compasisonate approach and said, “you just have to give them grace and know that it happens. It’s never pleasant, but it just comes with the territory.”
Of course, Millar and Gough were referring to when Ortega said Wednesday Adams’s love triangle “made no sense” on the Armchair Expert podcast hosted by Dax Shepard. There are two sides to every story, and it’s easy to say that both Ortega and the Wednesday writers are right, here.
On the one hand, since when does the Goth character get all googly-eyed over not one, but two classmates? On the other hand, shouldn’t an actor respect the words on the page, and not change scripts? Sure, a TV drama isn’t exactly improv, and cast members aren’t supposed to say that their characters are doing or saying incorrect things. But then again, she can’t be the only actor who has had a problem with the journey their character was taking.
There are no hard feelings, though! Millar called Ortega “one of the hardest working, most talented young actresses” and said their work together is “joyful” and “collaborative” (what a relief). Since she’s a producer on season 2 of Wednesday, she’s got more of an official voice, which is a great thing in my Wednesday-loving opinion.
Millar and Gough also mentioned the massive amounts of attention that Ortega got because of what she said. They also brought up the point that young stars sometimes make mistakes and say the wrong thing. But I believe Ortega would have said what she said regardless of her age. As she told Vanity Fair, “women have to be princesses” and “when they’re outspoken,” the response is negative. Nothing she said or did was that terrible, was it?!
Ortega also said in her Vanity Fair interview that she “could have used my words better” which everyone can relate to! There are times when Ortega has found exactly the right words, like when she commented on those awful AI photos of herself. So she’s like the rest of us human beings: prone to sometimes finding it hard to articulate exactly what she wants to.
As an Ortega superfan, I’m excited to watch her in Wednesday season 2, whether or not she decides to talk about what’s in the script!