Jenna Ortega Now Recalls Audition Before Landing ‘Wednesday’ Addams Role

The Addams Family, a television sitcom released in 1964, was cancelled after two seasons due to its initial lack of popularity and low ratings. After increasing popularity after the cancellation of the show, including renditions into animated films, Netflix later adapted the show into a successful version: “Wednesday,” featuring Jenna Ortega as the main character. After the billions of views of the first season, Netflix eventually released Season 2. Now, after receiving praise for her performance in the show, Jenna Ortega recalls her pre-Wednesday Addams audition.

Jenna Ortega’s Career So Far

With the stars of Hollywood fame in her favor, the young “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” star will almost certainly take on more  projects after the recent release of four episodes of Wednesday, her most recent project, including the possibility of a passion-project film directed by the young actress herself. 

Ortega got her start on the beloved Disney+ platform, starring as Harley Diaz in Stuck In The Middle, which she starred in for two years along with her co-stars.

In 2022, Jenna Ortega stars as Vada, a high school student survivor of a tragic school shooting, along with Maddie Zeigler as Mia Reed. The film follows Vada as she copes with the emotional aftermath, including PTSD and depression. A film based on true events, Ortega’s role in Fallout has resonated with and touched victims and families of violence everywhere.

Ortega’s most known role, besides Wednesday, is her part as Tara Carpenter in the slasher-horror film Scream, released in 2022, a whole 25 years after the first film of the franchise. The success of Scream solidified Ortega’s status as a rising star in Hollywood, with fans eagerly anticipating her future projects.

Ortega Before Wednesday

In 2022, Jenna Ortega’s role as Wednesday was finally seen once the show released on Netflix. Fans of the animated Addams Family feel that Ortega fully immersed herself into the role of Wednesday Addams, resulting in overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback, including one fan believing that “Wednesday gives hope for Netflix.” Ortega’s outstanding performance combined with Tim Burton’s gothic aesthetic resulted in over a billion views on Netflix. It’s no wonder the young actress portrayed the character so well, regarding her past admiration for the character and almost being cast as Wednesday Addams years earlier.

In an Entertainment Weekly  article on Season 2 of Wednesday, Ortega revealed that she read for the part in an animated Addams Family project around the age of 14.

“I recorded it on the set of a show that I was working on at the time,” she says. “I went to the closet, and I asked my mom to stand outside to make sure that there weren’t people walking by, and I remember leaving this broom closet and telling my mom, ‘I don’t know what they’re looking for, but I would like to play her one day. That would be cool.'”

Years later, she proudly wears the deadly scowl, raven-black pigtails and the blacked-out school uniform as the gothic teen.

Season 3?