Jenna Ortega has revealed she begged to be a producer on season one of Netflix hit Wednesday in a candid new interview with Vanity Fair.
The actress, 21, who was branded 'toxic' for revealing she frequently changed her lines on the show last year, said it 'made sense' for her to be involved as a producer as she was onscreen all the time.
The star who filmed Wednesday's first season aged just 18, said: 'I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge…. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project.'
She says she was told it was not common for actors to produce in a first season - adding: 'And then I think a lot of the work that I ended up doing and a lot of the conversations that I was having were more of a producer’s conversations half the time.'
Jenna has been made an executive producer on the show for its second season whose showrunner is Tim Burton.
Jenna Ortega has revealed she begged to be a producer on season one of Netflix hit Wednesday in a candid new interview with Vanity Fair
The actress, 21, who was branded 'toxic' for revealing she frequently changed her lines on the show last year, said it 'made sense' for her to be involved as a producer as she was onscreen all the time
The star who filmed Wednesday's first season aged just 18, said: 'I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge…. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project'
Last year Ortega's reveal that she routinely changed lines in Wednesday's script and became 'almost unprofessional'was criticized by fans and TV writers.
The actressraised eyebrows when she admitted she was not always happy with the script and began tweaking her lines inan interview on the Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard podcast.
She said: 'There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional, in a sense, where I just started changing lines,' she said.
'The script supervisor thought I was going with something,' she explained, '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.'
WriterMichael Sheridan tweeted: 'Yeesh... now I get why writers are getting a bit upset about her comments. The way this is framed... it appears she claims she knew better than the writers, better than Tim Burton, & she's why the show was a hit.'I don't know if she meant that, but that's how this reads.'
Ortega said she now regrets her words, saying: 'To be fair, I think I probably could have been….I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better.'
'Everything that I said felt so magnified…. It felt almost dystopian to me, I felt like a caricature of myself.'
The star added that she got 'sick of herself' last year as her face was 'everywhere', saying: 'so it’s like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too.'
She says she was told it was not common for actors to produce in a first season - adding: 'And then I think a lot of the work that I ended up doing and a lot of the conversations that I was having were more of a producer’s conversations half the time'
Jenna has been made an executive producer on the show for its second season
Last year Ortega's reveal that she routinely changed lines in Wednesday's script and became 'almost unprofessional' was criticized by fans and TV writers
The actress wowed in a chic shoot for Vanity Fair
Jenna wore an elaborate floral ensemble for one striking shot
The Dax Shepherd interview saw Jenna state: 'I don't think I've ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday.'
'Everything that [Wednesday] does, everything that I had to play, does not make sense for her character at all,' according to Ortega. 'Her being in a love triangle made no sense.'
There was a line about a dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she said 'Oh my god I love it... ugh, I can't believe I said that, I literally hate myself.' And I had to go 'No.'
The Disney alum also put her foot down about the circ*mstances leading up to her now viral dance.
'Initially, it was supposed to be a flash mob, and she was supposed to start dancing, and everyone was supposed to pick up on it and start dancing with her,' she shared.
'And that, I vetoed because why would she be OK with that?' she explained. 'I said, "Either cut it or have Wednesday knock someone out, and then it's done.'''
Jenna admitted she was too overwhelmed with other tasks, including learning to fence and play cello, to work with a choreographer on the dance, and was allowed to create the moves herself.
She was also unhappy with some of the 'morbid' things Wednesday had to say.
'When you're little and you say morbid, offensive stuff, it's funny and endearing and, "Aww, you don't know any better,"' she explained.
Ortega said she now regrets her words, saying: ' To be fair, I think I probably could have been….I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler'
Jenna wowed in a disc adorned top for the shoot
She posed up in a sweater for another glamorous shot
Elsewhere in the interview Ortega broke her silence on the exit of Percy Hynes White from the show. He played a psychic Nevermore student, Xavier Thorpe - but left the series after facing a number of sexual misconduct allegations online - which he has denied
'But then you become a teenager — it's, "Now you're being nasty and you know it." There's less excuse.'
'I really appreciate how candid Jenna Ortega seems to be about her experience working on Wednesday. You can be grateful for your success without being a hostage to 'I'm just grateful to be here,'' tweeted podcast host Jordan Crucchiola. 'I hope she keeps being very honest about her challenges.'
Elsewhere in the interview Ortega broke her silence on the exit of Percy Hynes White - who she was rumored to be dating - from the show.
He played a psychic Nevermore student, Xavier Thorpe who was one of the two main male leads and a romantic interest for Wednesday (Ortega).
He left the series after facing a number of sexual misconduct allegations online - which he has denied.
She said losing Hynes White has been 'a weird redirect, but we’re introducing so many different characters that I think it kind of will get lost. Wednesday’s world does feel slightly askew anyway.'
In September 2023 DailyMail.com exclusively reported that he was written out of the show after he was accused of purposefully getting women drunk at a Toronto party he hosted so he could have sex with them.
In early 2023, White faced a series of sexual assault allegations — which he adamantly denied as a 'campaign of misinformation.'
In June last year, he issued a statement regarding the since-deleted anonymous social media posts from that past January.
She said losing Hynes White has been 'a weird redirect, but we’re introducing so many different characters that I think it kind of will get lost. Wednesday’s world does feel slightly askew anyway'; seen in January 2023
In his impassioned post, he wrote: 'Earlier this year, somebody I've never met started a campaign of misinformation about me online. Because of this, my family has been doxxed, and my friends have received death threats. Underage photos of me were used, and examples of me acting in character were presented as hateful.'
He then went on about how one of his friends was 'falsely portrayed as a victim' and condemned the 'baseless, harmful claims.'
Even though he would not be returning to Wednesday, he does have other projects in the pipeline, including Winter Spring Summer or Fall — a romantic comedy he filed with Ortega in Utah earlier last year and is set for release in June 2024.
Read the full story in Vanity Fair’s September issue and on VanityFair.com
