Jenna Ortega has simply completed a protracted day on set in London for an upcoming undertaking when she will get on the cellphone to talk with me from a transferring automobile — not an unusual incidence for an in-demand star. Regardless of the whirlwind nature of the previous few hours, the gracious 22-year-old actor sounds genuinely invested when answering questions with a respectful straightforwardness.
Along with Ortega’s a number of big-screen titles out this 12 months, “Wednesday” — the Tim Burton-helmed present that propelled her from rising expertise to Hollywood “it girl” — returns for the primary a part of its second season on Aug. 6 after a three-year pause.
And whereas this newest chapter within the story of the Addams Household and their morbidly sensible daughter Wednesday sees her grappling with newfound, undesirable fame after saving Nevermore, the college for outcasts, Ortega doesn’t wish to dwell on the pitfalls of movie star, in contrast to her character.
“Oh, I don’t really think about it too much. I used to, but I don’t really see a point anymore. It is what it is,” Ortega says politely once I ask how she offers with the elevated recognition the collection has introduced her. “Maybe that was the writers’ intention, to be slightly meta.”
Jenna Ortega returns to her titular function in Season 2 of “Wednesday.”
(Jonathan Hession / Netflix)
The primary season of “Wednesday” turned Netflix’s most-watched present when it was launched in 2022 and shortly impressed a viral social media development round Ortega’s dance strikes to the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck.” Her character’s wit, confidence and fashionable goth model made Ortega an immediate hit with viewers. She captured Wednesday’s essence with such biting precision that her efficiency now feels inextricable from the function.
Since that breakthrough, the actor has consolidated her standing as a brooding main girl starring within the horror hit “Scream VI,” diving deeper into Burton’s universe with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” showing within the fantastical darkish comedy “Death of a Unicorn” and becoming a member of the music-laced thriller “Hurry Up Tomorrow” reverse pop star the Weeknd.
“Growing up, I actually played the really nerdy, awkward character. I was never pegged as the dark one,” Ortega explains. “That’s why it’s kind of funny that it’s sort of my MO now, because I was always being described in scripts as a mouse or like, really intelligent but lacked some sense of confidence.”
Whereas Ortega hopes that a few of her credit on the horizon will change that narrative, she acknowledges {that a} “dark” character like Wednesday Addams gives complexity that’s thrilling for an actor to play. “It’s weird that oftentimes when people see you as one thing, they only want to see you as that,” she says. “And when you venture outside of it, it can be quite disengaging for people.”
“Growing up, I actually played the really nerdy, awkward character. I was never pegged as the dark one,” Jenna Ortega says.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Occasions)
Additionally again for the great weirdness of “Wednesday” are Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán, the veteran performers who play the heroine’s dad and mom Morticia and Gomez Addams. This season options their characters extra prominently, a lot to their delight.
“Me and Luis were like, ‘Can we do any more?’” says Zeta-Jones on a video name from Spain about their roles within the first season. The YA collection catapulted recent faces like Ortega and Emma Myers, who performs Wednesday’s roommate Enid, to stardom, however Zeta-Jones and Guzmán have dozens of movie and TV credit between them, bringing a long time of expertise to the present. (Zeta-Jones can also be an Oscar winner for her supporting function in 2003’s “Chicago.”)
When she discovered that collection creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar deliberate to look nearer on the different members of the Addams clan, together with Gomez and Morticia, Zeta-Jones was wanting to flesh out her half, signing on for Season 2.
“I was thrilled because for such an iconic character, you don’t really know a lot about Morticia,” provides Zeta-Jones in her distinct Welsh accent. “They finely tuned her vulnerability, her emotion, her fraught dynamic with Wednesday, and then brought in Grandma Frump [Morticia’s mother, played by Joanna Lumley].”
Guzmán describes the brand new episodes as a continuation of the ethos of inclusion established within the first season, a high quality that has helped the Addams Household endure throughout generations.
“Me and Luis were like, ‘Can we do any more?’” says Zeta-Jones about enjoying Wednesday’s dad and mom, Gomez and Morticia Addams. The pair are featured extra prominently this season.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Occasions)
“Our show shows people that it’s OK to be who you are no matter what,” he says throughout an interview inside a trailer on the Discussion board earlier than taking the stage for Netflix’s Tudum occasion in Could. “It’s not about fitting in — it’s just about living your life, and it’s OK to be how you are. Weird might not be the best word, but in our case, weird is beautiful.”
Guzmán, who typically speaks about his character within the first individual, is happy that audiences will uncover Gomez’s nuances this season. “You find out more about his fathering. I do have a whole segment with my son [Pugsley, played by Isaac Ordonez] this season,” he says. “And you just see how I navigate my life as a father in all the different circumstances that we come across.”
This bigger dose of Gomez contains a rendition of the Spanish-language romantic monitor “Bésame Mucho,” a Thirties bolero written by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez for which numerous variations exist, in a scene that allowed the Puerto Rican actor, whose storied profession contains a number of collaborations with director Paul Thomas Anderson, to flex his ardour for singing.
“They’re just so excellent as the characters and so funny together. They bring such a great sense of humor,” Ortega says about her on-screen mother and pa, who share a passionate relationship like previous iterations of the characters. “And who doesn’t want to see Gomez and Morticia all over each other? That’s half the point of the series in general.”
“They’re just so excellent as the characters and so funny together. They bring such a great sense of humor,” says Jenna Ortega of Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia and Luis Guzmán as Gomez.
(Jonathan Hession / Netflix)
It’s not the primary time the actors have labored collectively, both. “Wednesday” reunited Guzmán and Zeta-Jones for the primary time in additional than twenty years after sharing the display screen in Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 Oscar-winning crime drama “Traffic.”
“We hadn’t seen each other in all this time, and then we totally picked up where we left off,” says Zeta-Jones. “I was pregnant with my son during ‘Traffic,’ and Luis used to take such good care of me, making sure I had my tea and my stool to put my feet up.”
Guzmán mentioned their reunion was “incredibly rewarding,” calling her “kind and precise in her work.”
Ortega, who’s nicely conscious of her co-stars’ careers and accolades, treasures the time she’s spent with these seasoned artists — first in Romania, the place the primary season was shot, and extra not too long ago in Eire for this return — notably as a result of it’s a present that required them to create a familial bond whereas enjoying peculiar characters.
“They’ve had such extensive careers and have done all sorts of genres, so they’re very malleable performers,” she says. “And to be able to work with them on a show that is kind of a conglomerate of so many different ideas — it’s incredibly beneficial and has just been such wonderful education for me.”
The admiration is mutual. Zeta-Jones believes typically nice success at a younger age is bestowed on people who aren’t outfitted to cope with it irrespective of what number of mentors they’ve on their aspect. Ortega, she thinks, represents the antithesis and is effusive about her work.
“They’ve had such extensive careers and have done all sorts of genres, so they’re very malleable performers,” Jenna Ortega says of co-stars Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Occasions)
“I can’t think of anyone more deserving or more prepared for what has happened to her in such a short space of time, because she’s the real deal,” says Zeta-Jones about Ortega. “She’s got her head screwed on right. And more importantly, she’s unwavering in her strength as a young woman. We talked art, politics, a whole bunch of s— that has nothing to do with ‘Wednesday.’”
The 2 actors have already shot one other undertaking collectively, “The Gallerist,” an upcoming thriller filmed in Paris that additionally stars Natalie Portman and was directed by Cathy Yan (“Birds of Prey”) . “It was wonderful to work with her not in the ‘Wednesday’ world,” provides Zeta-Jones.
Nowadays, Zeta-Jones, who says she desires to direct sooner or later, feels she has nothing left to show on this business. The actor established herself with movies like “The Mask of Zorro” and “Entrapment,” resulting in a profitable Hollywood profession by many measures. Now, each job she takes is out of delight. “I am enjoying this bit of a renaissance, this new chapter,“ she says.
Her outlook wasn’t always so peaceful, however. “I remember literally having nightmares on that Friday of box office numbers,” remembers Zeta-Jones. “It was really terrifying, and now everything’s a bonus, so the pressure’s off now.”
Requested about any piece of information she would have preferred to have recognized when she was Ortega’s age, the actress seemed inward. “The biggest one for me, just in general in my career, in my life, is that you can’t please everybody,” says Zeta-Jones. “And you can’t be liked by everybody.”
Luis Guzmán and Catherine-Zeta Jones have had lengthy careers in Hollywood, and each are effusive about Jenna Ortega’s work: “She’s got her head screwed on right.” (Jennifer McCord / For The Occasions)
For his half, Guzmán says the important thing to skilled longevity is humility. With a resume as eclectic and constant as his, he should be on to one thing. “Carlito’s Way,” “Boogie Nights” and “Punch-Drunk Love” characteristic a few of his most memorable elements. And for his function in Soderbergh’s 1999 crime saga “The Limey,” Guzmán acquired an Unbiased Spirit Award nomination for greatest supporting male.
“Grounded” and never blinded by her “star power” is exactly how he thinks of Ortega. “She carries herself like a seasoned veteran,” he provides.
“This business could make you think that you’re the greatest thing alive. And you might be, but you’re also bound to remember where you come from,” he says. “Remember what steps you had to take in order to get to where you are at the moment. My philosophy when I work is I always want to be invited to the next party, and I’ve been invited to many parties.”
For Ortega, who’s been in entrance of the digicam since she was 9 years outdated, the lesson she needs she’d discovered sooner was figuring out the right way to assert her company as an artist in an surroundings wanting to diminish her.
“I wish I had felt more secure in my position or in myself,” says Ortega. “I felt like I was always having to be somebody else or put on another mask or face, because it’s hard getting jobs and there’s so much competition. There’s so much rejection, and I wasn’t always what they were going for.”
Now, with extra energy to be selective about her tasks, Ortega not desires to be a “workhorse,” and she or he goals to dictate extra carefully the place her time and vitality go.
“I had been recommended to change myself for other people, which I think, as a young girl — that could probably be really confusing,” Ortega provides. “And I don’t know what that does on the psyche, but it’s something that I’ve learned now, more so in the recent years after all this stuff that I wish I had taken on much sooner.”
Jenna Ortega, who has been appearing since she was a toddler, says she’s higher at asserting herself now: “I felt like I was always having to be somebody else or put on another mask or face, because it’s hard getting jobs and there’s so much competition.”
(Jennifer McCord / For The Occasions)
No matter self-possession Ortega thinks she could have lacked, Wednesday has it in spades. However does she hope that her efficiency, and the way in which she handles her skilled life, may encourage younger viewers? Maybe even spark an curiosity in appearing identical to watching Dakota Fanning in “Man on Fire” did for her at a younger age?
“It’s really hard for me to think about myself in that sense, but with a character like Wednesday, I do think she’s a good role model for girls, considering her strength and courage and confidence in herself,” Ortega says. “She doesn’t underestimate her power and is always pushing herself to learn more. She’s a curious individual.”
Curiosity is a trait that Ortega and Wednesday share. Whilst she juggles a difficult schedule, the actor, whom Zeta-Jones describes as “well-read with an amazing knowledge of directors and movies of great historical importance,” nonetheless finds time to look at movies and broaden her creative panorama.
“Sometimes it’s hard when you’re filming because too many stories can be a bit heavy on the mind,” Ortega says. “I read less books, but I still always watch at least a movie on the weekend. I’ll read plays because they’re a bit easier to pick up and put down and finish, so it doesn’t take from you too much and it’s still involved in my craft and the history of it all.”
Stardom born from diligent work does include its dazzling perks. At Tudum, Ortega appeared on stage throughout Woman Gaga’s efficiency as a part of a lugubrious ensemble. The pop star has a cameo look on this season of “Wednesday.”
“That was something that came up the night before,” says Ortega. “I didn’t have much time to think about it, but that seems like something you would be regretting for a very long time afterwards if you didn’t take her up on it.”
As she tries to steadiness spontaneity with technique transferring ahead, Ortega, who doesn’t a lot take pleasure in pondering the longer term, may lean extra on Guzmán and Zeta-Jones for recommendation on what it takes to construct a long-lasting, fulfilling profession amid hurdles and triumphs.
“Maybe I’ve got to talk to them a bit more about that instead of making silly jokes sometimes,” Ortega says. “I get very easily overwhelmed, and I’ve got to take things a day at a time before I start thinking too far in advance.”
