Daredevil showrunner calls Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday comments “toxic and entitled”
By Dan Selcke
Wednesday, an update of The Addams Family franchise that sends ooky-spooky daughter Wednesday off to boarding school, was one of Netflix’s big breakout shows of 2022. Star Jenna Ortega has gotten a huge career boost off it; she recently appeared in Scream VI and hosted Saturday Night Live.
The 20-year-old actor has also made headlines for mercilessly dragging her own show in a way you just don’t see much of in Hollywood, opening up about how she changed lines she didn’t like. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on Wednesday,” Ortega said the other week. “Everything that she does, everything that I had to play did not make sense for her character at all. Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘Oh my god, I love it! I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.’”
"There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines. The script supervisor thought I was going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things. I grew very, very protective of her."
I mean, she’s a hair’s breadth away from saying she thought the script sucked! Unironically iconic.
Showrunner on Spartacus and Daredevil thinks Jenna Ortega’s comments are “toxic and entitled”
As an outsider, I find this all pretty hysterical. But I can also understand how, if you were a writer on Wednesday, you wouldn’t appreciate these comments. Ever heard the expression, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? That’s especially true in Hollywood, where professional relationships make the world go round. And if Ortega wants a long career, it might not be a great idea for her to offend people in her industry.
That’s the tack that Hollywood veteran Steven DeKnight took on Twitter, where he called Ortega’s comments “toxic and unprofessional.” Read what he had to say below:
I love talking with actors about their lines/stories. But by the nature of the beast, they don’t have the full picture (in TV) of where the story is going and why some lines are needed for the whole to make sense. https://t.co/jewHLX4bKk
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 7, 2023
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 DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 7, 2023
DeKnight got his start as a writer on shows like Buffy and the Vampire Slayer and Angel before moving on to serve as showrunner on Starz’s Spartacus and eventually Netflix’s Daredevil series. So he’s been in the business for a while and I take his point about not wanting to stir up drama.
…and then he called the actions of the one of the hottest stars in town “toxic and entitled” on Twitter, so maybe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What do you make of all of this?
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