Talking to The Times, Ortega explains:

“I got the email, passed on it… I had done so much TV in my life, all I’ve ever wanted to do is film. When I first started acting, I don’t want to say nobody believed in me, but at the same time nobody believed in me. You have to prove yourself. 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.”

As it turns out, it was the involvement of director Tim Burton that changed Ortega’s mind, and even then she still turned down the project. She continues, “The only reason I went back is because Tim is such a legend, and we just happened to get along very well. But even then I said, ‘Ah, no—I think I’m OK,’ a couple [more] times.”

Ortega also admits that she didn’t think the show would be a huge hit; and it turned out that she was wrong. Now Ortega has become the poster child for goth girls all around the world, and it doesn’t help that her ‘Wednesday Dance’ has gone viral.

While typecasting is a true thing that’s happened for multiple actors, I’m hoping that Ortega finds more work in the future without Wednesday overshadowing everything.

For now, catch the first season of Wednesday now streaming on Netflix. You can also catch Ortega in Scream VI now showing in theaters.

This scene in particular:

As it turns out, Ortega herself came up with the moves, and she did so by studying goth dance clubs from the 80s. Here’s her post:

Thanks to Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, Denis Lavant, and archival footage of goths dancing in clubs in the 80’s. Helped me out on this one. https://t.co/zlxlv1JUW4

— Jenna Ortega (@jennaortega) November 25, 2022

The clip has actually gone viral online, with some people parodying it on TikTok. Besides the influence from goth culture, some fans have pointed out that some of the moves are call backs to the original Addams Family films like the dance between Gomez and Morticia, and there’s also a small hint at the ‘Wednesday Dance’ from the original Addams Family series from the 60s.

So far, a lot of fans have been loving Wednesday, and though some of the plot points can seem a tad high-school, I think it’s great way to introduce younger audiences to the odd humor that The Addams Family has been known for. Hopefully this means we could get a rebooted film soon, but I guess just a show with Wednesday is fine.

Here’s the official description for Wednesday:

WEDNESDAY — starring Jenna Ortega in the title role, alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, Gwendoline Christie, Christina Ricci and more — is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Snap snap.

The complete first season of Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.

Thanks to a new featurette from Netflix, we have a closer look at the newly conceived Nevermore Academy, which is kind of like Hogwarts, except it was Jack Skellington that was running the show. Watch this:

While The Addams Family doesn’t really have any strict lore, we barely got any kind of monsters in the show, save for the disembodied hand, Thing. With Wednesday though, we get to see that she has classmates that range from vampires to werewolves; she even has some that can just alter reality and bring drawings to life.

I guess it does feel fresh, but at the same time familiar. Even Gomez’s reactions when Wednesday said her life was being threatened feels like classic Addams Family. We don’t know who else could be arriving in the series, but so far, the show seems to have made itself distinct from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Here’s the official series description:

WEDNESDAY – starring Jenna Ortega in the title role, alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, Gwendoline Christie, Christina Ricci and more – is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Snap snap.

Wednesday premieres on Netflix on Nov. 23.

Check out the new Wednesday trailer down here: 

While Morticia and Gomez are pretty much well-defined characters who have clear goals, Uncle Fester has always been kind of a loose cannon. He was written to be kind of a villain in the first live-action movie, but he’s always had a penchant for all the weird things that the family is into. We don’t know how Fred Armisen’s Fester is going to play off in the show, but I’m sure he’s going to try and add his own spin on the character.

Besides Uncle Fester, the preview also gives us our first look at OG Wednesday Addams Cristina Ricci as Ms. Thornhill. The series seems to be propping her up to be some kind of mentor to Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday, but I think the character could be up to something behind the scenes that we won’t see coming.

I’ll admit, I though the show looked to similar to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but I can forget that The Addams Family does have its own dark brand of humor that very much sets it apart. Hopefully this show will introduce a whole new generation of fans to the odd family that are the Addams.

Wednesday premieres on Netflix on Nov. 23.

Just in, we have a new promo for the series giving us a look at Nevermore Academy, it’s lore, and the faculty and students that populate it. Watch this:

Fresh from her guest appearance in The Sandman as Lucifer it’s pretty fitting that Gwendoline Christie would be the lead of Nevermore, holding a tight leash on the school’s crazy students. It also seems that Wednesday’s classmates all have their own unique quirks, which would be interesting to watch when you consider Wednesday—who is usually the weird character being bounced off of ‘normies.’

I’ll admit, I thought the series looked too much like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but I’m starting to see that signature Addams Family humor that made the series so unique. Hopefully we’ll get to see some of Wednesday’s family members make cameos down the line.

WEDNESDAY is an upcoming Netflix series from the imagination of Tim Burton. WEDNESDAY — starring Jenna Ortega in the title role, alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, Gwendoline Christie, Christina Ricci and more — is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Snap snap.

As of now, Wednesday still has no release date, but I’m guessing the series could premiere on Netflix sometime during the Halloween season.

Watch the trailer for Wednesday starring Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Luis Guzman:

A sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday’s attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago – all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.

Though we do get some short scenes with Morticia and Gomez Addams, the trailer mostly focuses on Wednesday and her arrival in Nevermore Academy. Though even old Addams Family movies draw from the absurdity of the family when they are placed beside ‘normal’ people, it seems that the setting of Nevermore is there to challenge Wednesday with other characters that could be kookier than her or her family members.

I also have to say, it’s great that the show got Gwendoline Christie for the role of the Nevermore principal, because after playing the lord of the Underworld in The Sandman, who else do we get to play some kind of authority figure for one of the darkest little girls in fiction?

Let’s also not forget that the OG Wednesday Christina Ricci is in this series, so we should watch out for who she’ll be playing.

Catch Wednesday when it premieres sometime around the fall—possibly around the Halloween season.

As per EW, Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth) has been cast as a new character named Larissa Weems. Larissa in the show is a former classmate of Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and is the principal of Wednesday’s school, Nevermore Academy.

With Zeta-Jones playing one of the more iconic pop-culture matriarchs, she’s going to need someone who can command the same presence, and I think Christie can pretty much pull it off. She’s proven she can be an intimidating presence even without showing her face—just look at the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Besides Christie and Zeta-Jones, the show also has Luis Guzman (Gomez Addams), Isaac Ordonez (Pugsley), and George Burcea (Lurch). The main role of Wednesday has also been given to You star Jenna Ortega.

Here’s EW’s description for Wednesday:

Wednesday is a supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student as she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the spooky mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago.

As of now, no release date has been set for Wednesday, but the series is expected to debut on Netflix.

After it was revealed that Luis Guzman would be playing the role of Wednesday’s father Gomez Addams, Variety reports that Catherine Zeta-Jones has landed the role of Addams matriarch Morticia. We don’t have much details on Morticia’s role in the show, but it’s said that Zeta-Jones has guest-star status.

Probably the most popular version of Morticia Addams is played by Anjelica Huston who had played the role in two Addams Family films that came out in the 90s. Before that, the role was played by Carolyn Jones in the 60s version of the show. Charlize Theron also provides her voice for the recent animated reboot of the property.

Since Morticia is best-known for her gothic, sexual presence, someone like Zeta-Jones seems like a solid choice for the part. We don’t know how much she’ll be in the show, but I can’t wait to see how Burton deals with the character. It would also be great to see how Guzman’s Gomez plays beside Zeta-Jones.

Here’s the description of the Wednesday series:

“[Wednesday is] a supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Wednesday’s attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.”

The series has been greenlit for 8 episodes, but so far we don’t have any new promo art or casting news. No release date has been set for the Wednesday Addams spinoff series, but you can catch the rest of the Addams Family in the animated sequel which comes out on Oct. 1.