Jenna Ortega says sudden fame was ‘very overwhelming’

Jenna Ortega has described the sudden fame that came with starring in Netflix hit Wednesday as “very overwhelming”.

The first season of the show about the Addams family’s deadpan daughter became Netflix’s most popular English-language series ever after its release in 2022.

Ortega, 22, told BBC culture correspondent Lizo Mzimba she was “very grateful and glad that it was able to resonate with people in the way that it did”.

But asked if she was ready for the attention that came with the series, the US actress replied: “Is anyone? No, I wasn’t. I wouldn’t want to know someone who is. I don’t think that should ever be like a normal sort of [experience].”

She added: “I’m still very appreciative and grateful. We didn’t know that anyone was going to watch the show. You do these things and you don’t know what’s to come, so it was very overwhelming.”

The second season of Tim Burton’s show, released next week, follows Wednesday Addams as she returns to Nevermore Academy, now under the leadership of a new principal.

It also sees a bigger role for Wednesday’s parents, who will have an increased presence on the school’s campus, something Netflix has said results in “a rare new form of torture for a fiercely independent amateur sleuth”.

The greater prominence for father and mother Gomez and Morticia Addams gives a chance for the show to explore the family dynamics more deeply than it did in the first season.

“I think one of the reasons people resonate with the Addams family so much is their strangeness,” Ortega reflects.

“They’re a very cohesive unit, but they’re also very different from one another and stand out. They shouldn’t fit [together] but they do. And that’s very relatable.”

She highlights the complex dynamic between Wednesday and Morticia, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, and says she’s looking forward to viewers “getting to see more” of the Welsh actress, who she describes as a “delicious, divine presence”.

“It’s very typical for mother and daughter to butt heads,” Ortega notes, “and the daughter wanting to be her own person and feel that maybe she’s not being given the space she deserves or needs to come into her own.

“But also the mother’s desire to look after her children and be protective, and not wanting them to have to deal with the same hardships that they may have faced in the past. Reading the scripts, it’s very applicable to my experience as a teenager, and now.”

California-born Ortega has also starred in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Death of a Unicorn and two films in the Scream franchise, as well as TV series You and Jane the Virgin.

But her best-known role is Wednesday Addams, a character known for her sharp wit, deadpan delivery and fascination with all things morbid.

Wednesday was first portrayed by Lisa Loring in The Addams Family TV series in the mid-1960s. Christina Ricci later took on the role for two movies in the early 1990s.

Ortega is flexing some different muscles for the forthcoming second season by also serving as an executive producer, something she says “was a great education for me… I tried to soak in as much as I possibly could”.

She acknowledges the three-year gap between the first and second season, but adds that it “allowed the dust and debris to settle a little”.

Viewers have been “very patient with us”, Ortega smiles. “We made them wait for a long time. We do want to please them, but we want to do it in new and more exciting ways.”

Zeta-Jones says the second season gives her a bigger role after “just dropping in and setting up the matriarch of this central character” in the first.

Working on the opening season, the actress recalls, felt “like you were at the grassroots of something”.

So when producers told her they wanted to use the second season to “really incorporate the family surrounding Wednesday, and really look at that dynamic between the mother and daughter, it was just a joy”.

“They created a lovely arc that didn’t supersede the through story of Wednesday and her journey, it just padded it out beautifully and they fleshed our characters out great. At this point in my career, I feel so blessed to be part of this world.”

Other stars appearing in season two include Joanna Lumley as Wednesday’s grandmother Hester Frump, Steve Buscemi as Nevermore principal Barry Dort, and Billie Piper as head of music Isadora Capri.

Ortega suggests one of the reasons the show has resonated so widely is because it explores themes of “where we find our sense of community now”.

“I wasn’t around in the 70s, but I hear stories of people knocking on their neighbours’ doors, and the bikes going all throughout the city, and just expecting to meet someone at a certain time on a certain location.”

That contrasts hugely with the reliance on smartphones today, she notes. “People don’t talk to each other in person. They’re interacting and finding their community online, which can be very isolating.

“Also, there are so many voices and so many opinions that you’re exposed to, much more than you would typically be, or that humans are kind of meant to be exposed to.

“So I think it’s harder to find a sense of self. Young people are struggling to find, ‘What makes my voice stand out? What is it about me in this world and this society today that gives me a sense of purpose or control or authority?'”

According to Zeta-Jones, the Addams family are relatable precisely because “we embrace our idiosyncrasies”, adding: “It’s OK to be different, we don’t try to box it, hide it, as a family we encourage it… it’s the ultimate modern family.”

Ortega agrees: “There’s great comfort in seeing people who are so obviously themselves, freely, and place priority where it matters, and that’s your family, that’s who’s in front of you, your special interests, that’s your strength and your courage and your confidence in your voice.

“It’s very easy now to get swept up in some sort of sheep mentality, and I think it’s so important for young people to see this family now more than ever.”

The first four episodes of Wednesday’s second season are released on 6 August, with the remaining four released on 3 September.

BBC News used AI to help write the summary at the top of this article. It was edited by BBC journalists. Find out more.