the Netflix Serie Wednesday postulates a Wednesday Addams who has grown up a bit. Jenna Ortega play on wednesday as a teenager. It’s such a distinct role that the character received his own casting credit, separate from the rest of the cast. Creators Al Gough and Miles Millar explained why.
Gough and Millar were guests on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s top five podcast on October 28 to preview the series. They explained Ortega’s casting and why Wednesday got his own casting director. Wednesday it is now streaming on Netflix.
Wednesday Addams’ casting predates the rest of the ensemble.
Wednesday started with the title character. So the casting directors who worked on Wednesday The first years may not have been available to choose the rest of the roles.
“Well, the search continued and we started looking at Wednesday, obviously, before we started looking at the rest of the cast, which I think is how that credit came about,” Gough said in TV’s top five. “I agree, it’s certainly one we haven’t seen before either.”
Ortega stood out among those initial rounds of auditions. Ortega had finished filming Scream and he was in the middle of his next horror movie, X.
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“We saw hundreds and hundreds of young actresses for the show,” Gough said. “But when we found Jenna, she was just perfect. The first time we spoke to her was on Zoom and she was in New Zealand filming. X and she had been up all night. Even just talking to her, and then she did a scene right over Zoom and we were all like she was the one. Miles, me and Tim [Burton], we all knew immediately. It’s just one of those things. You know she’s out there and you just have to find her.”
‘Wednesday’ Required a Wednesday Addams Casting Director
Millar also emphasized why Wednesday’s role was exponentially more important for this particular version of The Addams Family. Since they based the show on Wednesday, they needed to dedicate more resources to Wednesday Addams.
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Also, this show is about her, so if you can’t find the right Wednesday, there’s no show. She’s in 95% of the show. It’s a marathon for her. It’s an incredibly complex role actually because you’re a contrarian. Every reaction you get is not really what you would normally do as an actress. She is very specific as a character. That was something Jenna just assumed. No method but turned on Wednesday. And her position was Wednesday. I think she’s a character you have to inhabit, so it’s a lot. It was a lot to take on. It is also very detailed. She doesn’t say much, but each scene is just a bunch of dialogue. So I think for her it was really an incredible feat of precision. She is a perfectionist. You see that and so is Wednesday, so I think you see that level of dedication in her acting that is really remarkable for someone her age.
miles thousand, TV’s top five10/28/22
Jenna Ortega made an impact on the scripts for ‘Wednesday’
Once Ortega was cast as Wednesday Addams, Gough and Millar realized they had overwritten him. Ortega could say something with a look that did not require dialogue.
“That was a constant process,” Gough said. “What we do is we meet every morning with her and Tim and go through the scenes. When Jenna took over the role and we got to see it, obviously we could go into the scripts in the future and make adjustments knowing what we would need and what we wouldn’t. Every day we go in there and tune and tune.”
Added Millar: “It was definitely an elimination process. There are a lot of really great lines that we didn’t need. It was too much. The weight of the lines felt too heavy. That was something sad and new for us, having to cut, but in the end it was a very good process. It was definitely a way for me to explore the character and really find that voice.”
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