- Jenna Ortega said it "made no sense" for her character on "Wednesday" to be part of a love triangle.
- On season one of the show, Wednesday Addams catches the attention of two classmates at school.
"Wednesday" star Jenna Ortega said that it "made no sense" for her titular character to be part of a love triangle on season one of the hit Netflix series.
"Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all," Ortega said on a recent episode of the podcast "Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard," released on Monday. "Her being in a love triangle made no sense."
"Wednesday," which debuted on Netflix in November, stars Ortega as the titular Addams Family character, Wednesday Addams. Similar to past iterations of the iconic character, Ortega's version of Wednesday is deeply morbid, curious, intelligent, and possesses deadpan humor.
Despite being a loner, Wednesday catches the attention of two boys when she's sent to Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts.
One is Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White), the brooding, psychic artist. While investigating a series of murders in town, Xavier became one of Wednesday's top suspects because of his mysterious nature.
The other love interest is Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), a barista at Weathervane Cafe and the son of the town's sheriff. Wednesday forms an unlikely friendship with him, which heads in a romantic direction as the season progresses and they get closer.
During her appearance on the podcast, Ortega said that "Wednesday" was a different role for her because she's "expressive" and hadn't been part of a teen show like that before. Even though people responded well to the series, she had doubts during production.
"I can't watch my work, but I can go home from set and say, 'The scene that we shot today felt good,'" she said. "On 'Wednesday,' there was not a scene in that show that I went home and was like, 'OK, that should be fine.'"
"Now a lot of people know me from that," she continued. "It's not my proudest moment internally, which, I think, also adds an extra level of insecurity and stress, because it's like, no, I'm finally getting these offers to these places that I want, but I don't want to be known specifically for that."
The "Scream" star also said that when she signed on to star on "Wednesday," she didn't have all the scripts, so she didn't know what the tone would be, how the score would sound, and how it would be cut together.
"It was confusing, in that sense," she said.
Shepard said that one of the aspects of Wednesday he liked was her detachment, but yet, as a viewer, he still wanted to see the teen experience the same things as her peers — which would also go against the nature of the character.
In addition to feeling like the love triangle was uncharacteristic for Wednesday, Ortega said that she "had to put my foot down" about other aspects of the show.
"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. I can't believe I said that — I literally hate myself.' And I had to go: 'No,'" Ortega recalled.
The "Scream" star said that there were instances where she "became almost unprofessional" because she changed lines — a part of the interview that drew mixed reactions.
"I grew very, very protective of [Wednesday], but you can't lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it's boring and nobody likes you," she said.