In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Jenna Ortega opened up about the controversial comments she made in March 2023 about changing her character's lines on the Netflix series Wednesday, admitting, “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think a lot of times I talk too much. I think it was hard for me to do that because I felt like if I had represented the situation better, maybe it would have been received better.”
On a March 2023 episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, Ortega said that many of Wednesday's original scripts didn't make sense from the character's perspective, and that she changed the dialogue without consulting the show's writers.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set more than I did on ‘Wednesday,’” she said at the time. “Everything Wednesday did, everything I had to play, didn’t make sense to her character at all. Being in a love triangle? It didn’t make sense. There was a line about a dress she had to wear to a school party and she’s like, ‘Oh my God I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ I had to say, ‘No.’ There were times on that set where I became almost unprofessional in a sense where I started changing lines. The script supervisor thought I was walking something and then I had to sit down with the writers, and they were like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I had to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”
Ortega’s comments sparked a backlash from film and television writers, who went on strike against the studios two months later. Several Hollywood writers took to social media to criticize Ortega as “toxic” and “unqualified,” and on picket lines, some Writers Guild of America members held signs with slogans such as “Without writers, Jenna Ortega has nothing to do!”
“Everything I said seemed so over the top… It felt so dystopian to me,” Ortega, now 21, told Vanity Fair. “I felt like a caricature of myself.”
She told the magazine that the media saga taught her a valuable lesson: “You’re never going to please everyone, and as someone who is a people pleaser by nature, it was really hard for me to understand that. Some people might not like you… and that’s totally normal.”
Ortega said she was “sick of myself last year,” adding: “My face was everywhere… so if I open my phone and see the same girl with a stupid quote or something, I'll get over it too.”
Vanity Fair writer Michelle Ruiz pointed out to Ortega that even after the #MeToo movement empowered women to stand up for themselves in Hollywood, many people still respond to such cases with disdain. Ortega agreed: “I feel like we definitely need to practice what we preach a little bit more… Women should be princesses. They should be elegant and classy and very kind… and then when they speak up, they can’t be tamed and they become a mess.”
Now, Ortega is serving as a producer on the upcoming second season of “Wednesday,” where she is encouraged to provide feedback. “She’s very direct,” executive producer and director Tim Burton told Vanity Fair. “She doesn’t talk shit, and I find that refreshing and beautiful and very artistic.” He even suggested that Ortega “could direct [the series] “If she wants to,” he added, “I saw from day one that she is very aware. She is more aware, sometimes, than I am.”
Season 2 of “Wednesday” is expected to arrive on Netflix sometime in 2025.
