There's No Bad Blood Between Jenna Ortega And The 'Wednesday' Writers

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | September 13, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | September 13, 2024 |

There is no shortage of younger actors who have been taken advantage of over the years. Plenty have risen to superstardom only to have people take over every decision in their lives, presenting themselves as an ally. Then, when the checks dry up, they’re gone. Even more young creatives are used and abused before they even make it into the dance, if they make it at all. It is, unfortunately, a fairly standard tale in Hollywood. This is why it makes sense that some newer, younger actors would feel protective over themselves and their image.

Jenna Ortega is one of the most popular young stars around. She’s been acting for years but made a name for herself as a Disney kid. Eventually, she moved on from the House Of Mouse and continued to appear regularly on film and TV screens. Still, her starring role as Wednesday Addams in the hit Netflix show Wednesday made her a mega-star. The show was a huge hit and made Ortega even more of a household name, and she was very protective of that show.

Ortega made headlines last year when she appeared on Dax Shepard’s podcast Armchair Expert. During their chat, she explained how she occasionally changed or refused to say lines while making the show. “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,” Ortega explained at the time. She clarified her controversial comments last month, noting that she “probably could have used [her] words better.” However, the writers and creators of Wednesday thought the whole thing was overblown.

Al Gough and Miles Millar, who recently wrote Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, are no strangers to Hollywood and the pressures of being a young star. So, when asked by The Hollywood Reporter about Ortega’s comments, they were very understanding. “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,” Gough noted. “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.”

Ortega also starred in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. She will be on Wednesday Season 2. She will be working with the duo again. “We work with Jenna very closely on the show. We obviously worked with her on Beetlejuice,” Millar noted. “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.”

When younger actors are taken advantage of, it is often by people in positions of power. Hearing two people in positions of power who are supportive and understanding of their star is a nice twist on an unfortunate, familiar story.