Jenna Ortega Slammed By Producer For ‘Entitled’ Comments — People Call Out He’s Never Worked With Her
It seems like when you get really famous and continue to be authentic in interviews, it can sort of come back to haunt you. Not that quintessentially-spooky actress Jenna Ortega minds a bit of haunting— she is the delightfully-creepy protagonist of “Wednesday” after all.
Still, her comments on the “Armchair Expert” podcast about changing the Netflix’s show‘s script are all some Hollywood execs can talk about — including one producer who hasn’t even worked with her.
This is what Ortega said on “Armchair Expert” that rubbed some people the wrong way
Ortega’s appearance on Dax Shepard’s podcast “Armchair Expert” was illuminating, talking about her own forays into self-esteem, her love of murder podcasts (of course), and her experience playing Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s “Wednesday.” While the 20-year-old actress’s realness is refreshing, she also got some flak for her comments on the “Wednesday” script — and how she had to put her “foot down” on set, even going against the writers and changing her lines.
The “You” actress explained, “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on ‘Wednesday.'” She told Shepard, that many parts of the original script “did not make sense for her character,” like Wednesday being in a love triangle.
Ortega gave a vivid example: “There was a line about a dress she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘Oh my god I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ I had to go, ‘No.’”
She also admitted to turning down the “Wednesday” role more than once
The actress told The Times that she passed on her “Wednesday” role a “couple” of times, and only signed on because director Tim Burton “is such a legend” and they got along very well. At the time, she thought the series would end up being a hidden Netflix “gem,” and “wasn’t going to be watched.”
Meanwhile, she also told the Armchair Expert podcast that she became almost “unprofessional” during the shoot, when she began “changing” lines that she thought didn’t make sense with Wednesday’s character traits. She said, “I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I’d have to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”
Plus, while Ortega said she is now “very, very protective” of Wednesday and her “emotional arc” on-screen (hence the script changing,” the show is actually not her “proudest moment” internally.
Since Jenna Ortega’s name is now practically synonymous with Wednesday Addams, her recent comments are understandably a lot to take in. That being said, Hollywood producer Steven S. DeKnight took his perplexing anger to a whole new level on Twitter, going on a rant about the actress even though he doesn’t seem to have ever worked on a set with her.
Why did this Hollywood producer go on a rant against her? The world will never know!
The producer behind “Daredevil” and “Spartacus” started his rant on Ortega last week after her podcast interview dropped, writing, “[Ortega] should also ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked about how difficult she was” on set. He quickly followed that by saying that the actress’s comments about changing the script were “beyond entitled and toxic.”
The strangest part? The writer and producer continued to talk about Ortega on Twitter… for several days. He later wrote, “What you don’t do is badmouth your writers in an interview,” and, “You don’t shit on your writers in public. It’s bad form in this business.” He also equated her comments to “[throwing her] creative colleagues under the bus.”
While DeKnight kept going off on Ortega’s podcast comments being something he would “never ever do,” he eventually changed his tune. Amid the actress reportedly deactivating her Twitter after getting criticized for her comments, DeKnight backed down on his rant… and kind of apologized.
Around a week after his initial negative tweets, the producer wrote, “I can’t stress this enough: She’s an amazing talent. It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly.” Hm, we thought so.
DeKnight also described Ortega as being “fantastic,” and that she just had an “unfortunate gaffe” when she made her comments publicly. He said, point-black “We’ve all had them.” He also asserted she is a “phenomenal talent.” And that she is!
So, while we doubt the actress even cared much at all about this producer’s comments, we’re happy Twitter did its thing in this case. Sure, maybe the “Wednesday” showrunners and writers didn’t love Ortega’s comments on the podcast, but her authenticity is part of her charm. No debate there.
