What Jenna Ortega's Relationship Is Really Like With Her Wednesday Co-Stars
It's hard to imagine anyone playing the perpetually stoic, emotionally constipated yet gentle-hearted Wednesday Addams on Netflix's hit show "Wednesday" other than Jenna Ortega – but how is her relationship with her co-stars?
Surprisingly, Ortega admitted she had passed on playing the lead several times before eventually coming around to the idea. Speaking with The Sunday Times, the "Scream" star dished that she had shifted her focus to film, so anything TV-related was admittedly no longer appealing to her. "I got the email, passed on it," she confessed. "I had done so much TV in my life, all I've ever wanted to do is film... It's only in the last three or four years that I've been able to start going up for film. I was scared that by signing on to another television show it could prevent me from doing other jobs I really wanted and cared about." But "Wednesday" surpassed all expectations and became a tremendous success, nabbing a record of 341.23M hours viewed in its first week, surpassing the fourth season of "Stranger Things."
Apart from getting her name out there, Ortega also gained something else from the role: Her best friends. The friendship she had on-screen with co-stars Percy Hynes White, Georgie Farmer, and Emma Myers translated to real life, with the "You" actor sharing that they had become a family.
The Nightshades, but in real life
The filming of "Wednesday" occurred in 2021, around the peak of the pandemic, with Jenna Ortega and her co-stars being shipped to Romania for months at a time. In an interview with Dax Shepard on his "The Armchair Expert" podcast, Ortega recalled her experience of feeling isolated far away from her family in a completely different part of the world. However, she found solace in her co-stars-turned-best buds, especially Percy Hynes White, Georgie Farmer, and Emma Myers.
Ortega told Shepard that she lived in the same apartment building as White and Farmer. "They would wait for me after I wrapped shooting to go for walks, or they would cook me dinner, or they would clean apartments," she said. "We mothered each other, so whenever someone was busier, like going through something, we were there."
Ortega also grew fond of Myers, who played her roommate and best friend on the show. "I don't think I've ever been so protective of somebody. I think about her all the time. I only ever want to make sure she's okay and good," she said. Myers, for her part, thinks the world of Ortega, too. "We get along so well, I love Jenna. She's one of my closest friends," she told Variety. "I think we have a different dynamic off-screen, but I still don't think it's any less important or deep or beautiful than Enid and Wednesday's."
Will Wednesday have another season?
Exciting news awaits fans longing for the return of "Wednesday" to Nevermore Academy, as a sophomore season is in the works. However, the exact release date on Netflix remains uncertain. Nevertheless, devotees can anticipate a follow-up installment that will shift its focus away from romance.
"We've decided we want to lean into the horror aspect of the show a little bit more. Because it is so lighthearted, and a show like this with vampires and werewolves and superpowers, you don't want to take yourself too seriously," Jenna Ortega shared with Elle Fanning in their Variety "Actors on Actors" interview. "We're ditching any romantic love interest for Wednesday, which is really great."
Meanwhile, "Wednesday" creators Al Gough and Miles Millar told The Hollywood Reporter that they're looking to dig deeper into Wednesday's friendship with Enid (Emma Myers) and the rest of her schoolmates, so you can expect to see more of their BFF-ship on screen. "For us, the show also is really about this female friendship, with Wednesday and Enid really being at the center of that. The fact that they really connected with audiences, it has been really gratifying," Gough explained. "So, we're excited to explore now that Wednesday's dipped her toe into the friendship pool, what's that gonna look like? It's like, she hugged. That was her big arc for the season, right? So it's like now, we do that."