Showrunner Steven DeKnight has chastised Jenna Ortega for openly criticising the work of Wednesday writers.
When she disagreed with creative decisions, the 20-year-old actress, who plays the title character in Netflix’s Addams Family spin-off, confessed she insisted on modifying lines in the screenplay and ‘putting her foot down’ behind the scenes.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday, because it’s so easy to fall into that category, especially with this type of show. Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all,’ she shared.
The You actor told Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert that there were specific occasions on production where she ‘even became almost unprofessional in a way where I just began rewriting lines’.
Steven, who has worked on programmes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Spartacus, slammed her words on Twitter, calling them ‘beyond entitled and nasty.’
The TV exec explained: ‘You don’t s**t on your writers in public. It’s bad form in this business. Just like it would be bad form for me to give an interview where I talk about an actor who was always late and not prepared and how I fixed their performance in editing.
He continued: ‘This kind of statement is beyond entitled and toxic. I love her work, but life’s too short to deal with people like this in the business.’
Steven, on the other hand, applauded Jenna’s performance, commenting that she’s ‘wonderful on film,’ adding that ‘this was simply (hopefully) a temporary breach in professional decorum. I wish her the best of luck in the future.’
While Steven may have disagreed with Jenna’s words, fans applauded her last year when she revealed she had declined to recite the line regarding Wednesday’s attire at the Rave’N dance.
Speaking at a Netflix Q&A, the Golden Globe nominee shared: ‘I remember there’s a line where I’m talking about a dress and initially she was supposed to say: “Oh my God I’m freaking out over a dress, I literally hate myself.”
‘And I was blown away because that sounded like… it was just a bunch of little things like that. I felt like we were able to avoid a lot of dialogue in an attempt to make her sound human.’
‘She’s right Wednesday being in a love triangle was dumb and useless to the character. I’m glad Jenna said something,’ one person tweeted.
‘The way Jenna despises the love triangle in Wednesday is so real actually and her reasoning is all true too ! there was no need for that arc it did not align with her character at all and made the show not as great as it could’ve been,’ another remarked.
Wednesday is available to stream on Netflix.
