Jenna Ortega Says Her ‘Wednesday' Character Would ‘Hate' the Commercialization of the Series
Jenna Ortega knows that Wednesday Addams would have a few qualms with just how popular the 'Wednesday' Netflix series has proven to be. In a new interview, Ortega told Harper's Bazaar that the titular character would probably 'hate' the commercialization of the hit show, and would certainly shy away from the public adoration of being an icon.
'She doesn't care,' Ortega said of how Wednesday would view the fame. 'It's pretty funny, when you think about it. She's an outsider, but now she's on these mugs, cereal boxes, and T-shirts. You're just thinking, 'Oh, man, she would hate this!''
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Ortega added that Wednesday is almost too blunt for her own good: 'I mean, God, if you could speak to everybody like Wednesday — just say what you truly mean — it would be amazing!'
Yet Ortega can also relate with her own overnight rise to being a household name. 'I was so stunned that I didn't really process it. I still haven't,' she said of being a hit Hollywood star now. 'What's so strange about a character like Wednesday is that Wednesday is an outcast and an outsider — but she's also a pop-culture icon. So, in a strange way, I feel like I've become a pop actor — if that makes sense. And that's something I never saw for myself.'
Ortega continued, 'I'm very grateful for my audience. And I want to be able to give back to them. But I also want to do things that are creatively fulfilling to me. So it's finding that balance of doing movies that they might be interested in and then doing movies that I'm interested in.'
Playing the Wednesday character has impacted Ortega's own tastes, too. 'I definitely feel like I have a bit more Gothic taste than I did when I was a teenager,' she said. 'I've always been into dark things or been fascinated by them, but I was a Disney kid, and the whole thing is being bubbly and kind and overly sweet.'
Ortega isn't the only Tim Burton star who has spoken out about the commercialization and cult fandom. 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' actor Michael Keaton (and Ortega's co-star for the recent sequel) previously told Empire that he had to somewhat overlook the zeitgeist iconography from the 1988 original movie.
'There's been so much merchandising of it, I had to drop back to where it started,' Keaton said. 'I had to go, 'What was my unusual imagination even thinking about when I was developing it in the first place?' As opposed to seeing a coffee mug or a golf-club cover [adorned with Betelgeuse's face].'
Keaton added that witnessing the lore of Betelgeuse in the merchandising world was a 'fucking weird' experience. 'To be honest with you — I'm being very frank — it was off-putting, to look and go, 'I don't want to look like all these little things, fuck that — what was the thing that started this?,'' Keaton said.
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