By playing the title role on Netflix's hugely successful Wednesday, Jenna Ortega achieved global success. That's not something she disregards…or, inevitably, she has a simple time to explain to others.
Ortega is vague about the fame Wednesday brought her, but she also maintains a clear love for the role and the character as a whole. “It's pretty funny when you think about it,” the actress said in a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar. “She's an outsider, but now she's in these mugs, cereal boxes, t-shirts. You're just 'Oh, she'll hate this!'
The complicated relationship and work with Ortega as a character, Wednesday has been there since she was first approached about the project, she said.
“I was at this point in my career doing films and going into the room,” she explained, noting that taking on the role could be in the way of a burgeoning film career. “So I told everyone. I hardly wanted to hear Tim. [Burton, producer and director on the series] I had to say it and I really like it and feel like I need to do it – it's kind of what happened. ”
While filming Ti West's 2022 Horror Movie X, after an audition with Burton via Zoom, Ortega filmed his second attempt on his own time without being asked. “The next day I was killing time in my hotel room, so I was thinking about her, and maybe she's moving like this.
That love is worth remembering when Ortega has to consider what the success of the show means on a practical level for her. “I've been doing shows playing school girls for years, and I'm also a young woman,” she said at one point in the interview. Later she adds: “The very strange thing about characters like Wednesday is that Wednesday is an outcast and an outsider, but she's also a pop culture icon, so in a strange way, I feel like I've become a pop actor.
Advance, Ortega will combine future Wednesday seasons with more challenging and strange film productions. “I am very grateful to my audience. I want to be able to give back to them, but I want to do creatively fulfilling things,” she reasoned. “So, finding the balance between making a film that they might be interested in, then making a film that I'm interested in, finding that balance.”
Wednesday's season 2 begins on Netflix August 6th.
