Netflix's Wednesday was one of the biggest TV series of 2022, which thrust star Jenna Ortega into the spotlight in a tremendous way, resulting in her earning a major surge in media attention. During these various interviews, the star noted that there were times in which she was critical of the series' scripts, both in terms of how Wednesday was portrayed and also in narrative directions being explored. Writers on the series Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have expressed that they understand where the actor was coming from, and also how they are familiar with witnessing young talent being thrust into pop culture and the intense attention being paid to all of their remarks.
When asked by The Hollywood Reporter about Ortega's script criticisms, Gough detailed, "That's hard. We've done a few of these shows, like Smallville, which was a big hit out of the gate. Suddenly, you have these young stars in the spotlight. They're going to misstep. They're going to say things. I think you just have to give them grace and know that it happens. It's never pleasant, but it just comes with the territory. I think we're at the point now where the internet's going to do what the internet's going to do. What you don't want to do is give these things oxygen."
Clearly there's no bad blood between any of the parties involved, as Ortega starred in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , written by Gough and Millar, and all three are involved in Season 2 of Wednesday .
"We work with Jenna very closely on the show. We obviously worked with her on Beetlejuice ," Millar pointed out. "It's always an incredibly collaborative and joyful experience. We couldn't be prouder of her work and we've embraced her as a producer on the show this year. She is one of the hardest working, most talented young actresses in the business, and we are very lucky and feel very proud that she's working with us. So it is what it is. A show of this size and this scale is always going to have people chattering. But it's not our reality or her reality."
Ortega's initial remarks came from an interview she did in 2023 with the podcast Armchair Expert , when she reflected on being "unprofessional" in how adamant she was about script changes.
"There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines," the actor shared. "The script supervisor thought I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they'd be like, 'Wait, what happened to the scene?' And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn't do certain things."
Speaking more to the bits that felt off, Ortega detailed, "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 this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she says, 'Oh, my God, I love it! I can't believe I said that. I literally hate myself.' And I had to go, 'No, there's no way.'"
Season 2 of Wednesday is currently in production and is expected to premiere in 2025.
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