Jenna Ortega: "Everything about Ireland was so beautiful"

In the age of IP-driven content, The Addams Family was ripe for a reboot, and thus in 2022, Netflix made the inspired decision to install visionary director Tim Burton at the helm of a series centred around Wednesday Addams.

In an instantly iconic lead performance – which even introduced The Cramps to a new generation courtesy of a high school dance scene – Californian actress Jenna Ortega made Wednesday into a gothic anti-heroine.

As she attempted to solve a murder at her Nevermore high school, Wednesday also interacted with the other members of the Addams Family, all of them characters who’ve become beloved of successive generations, including Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen), and parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzman).

With season one of Wednesday proving an international mega-hit, the hotly anticipated second series arrives in two installments. The story finds Wednesday going back to Nevermore, where she develops her psychic abilities, faces a new tormentor, and must act to prevent the death of her werewolf roommate Enid (Emma Myers).

With Burton once again helming several episodes this time out, how did Ortega feel about returning to his famously lavish sets?

“It was just absolutely beautiful,” enthuses the now 22-year-old star. “I mean, we had the privilege of getting to burn down a majority of the school at the end of the first season, so we got to start almost entirely from scratch. It was great to see these new, beautiful castles covered in moss and cobwebs. And we also changed the location – we were shooting in Ireland instead of Romania.

“Romania had such beautiful gothic architecture, but Ireland did as well. And there was a lot of great locations that we got to use, which had very intense histories. It was maybe a different level of trust all around this season from Netflix, so I felt like our production designer, Mark, got to explore a bit more. He had more space to be creative, which was really wonderful.”

Among the exciting additions to the cast, meanwhile, is ’90s indie legend Steve Buscemi, star of such cult classics as Reservoir Dogs, Fargo and The Big Lebowski. Buscemi is onboard as Nevermore principal Barry Dort, and delivers a typically compelling performance.

“He’s an interesting character because he’s really pro-Nevermore,” Buscemi considers. “He loves the school so much (laughs). He’s very impressed with Wednesday, and he wants to exploit. She’s not really having any of it, but he also likes that she’s giving him trouble, because that’s what she does. But that doesn’t stop him from trying.

“In terms of the sets, I loved the fireplace in Dort’s office. It was intimidating, because that was Principal Weems’ domain. And here I am coming in and talking bad about her, and trying to be the big guy on campus. But that set just gives you so much.”

Tim Burton on the set of Wednesday.

The director of such acclaimed movies as Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, the 66-year-old Burton is celebrated for creating darkly stylish fantasy worlds, as well as focusing on outsiders. The Addams Family perhaps represent something of a paradox – despite existing outside of regular society, they carry themselves with a certain confidence.

“Well, I remember when I read season one, I felt strangely like it was written for me,” notes Burton. “Even though I’m not a teenage girl, I feel like one sometimes. It’s just something that really spoke to me. I loved her take on everything, from family to school to psychiatry. That’s why I wanted to do it – it’s because of the strength of that particular character.”

With Wednesday aimed at younger audiences, is it tricky to balance the horror elements?

“No, I’ve always sort of confused things,” replies Burton. “People say it’s too light or too dark. It was there with Nightmare Before Christmas – people were asking if it was too scary. But for little children, it’s like a fable or a fairytale. Those stories incorporate light and dark, as well as humour, drama and scariness. I never think too much about it, because that’s what life is – it’s a mix of all those things.

“When you have these amazing people, it becomes its own thing. So it’s not something I really worry about.”

INVIGORATING EXPERIENCE

For her part, Ortega still finds working with Burton an invigorating experience.

“I mean, there’s so much to learn,” she says. “I don’t have the history that Steve has. But what I love about working with Tim is that nothing’s really prepared for the day-to-day stuff. So, it’s really wonderful to be able to walk onto a set and let him take it in. He looks at it from every perspective, and it’s something fresh every day.

“I think it’s really easy on a TV show to fall into routine habits and shots. But some days Tim might want to do a lot of set-ups, and sometimes he wants to fit it all into one. Or sometimes he bases it off a single line, which is really fascinating. There are different priorities in Tim’s mind than the typical director, guess.”

As Ortega alluded to earlier, season two of Wednesday was filmed in Ireland, at Ashford Studios in Wicklow. How did she find the experience?

“Everything about Ireland was so beautiful,” she enthuses. “We had such a hard-working crew, people who really gave it their all. They were so skilled. The only real challenge we had was fighting the green – it was so bright for the show. (Laughs) Suddenly, the Addams looked alive!”

In terms of the nuances of Wednesday Addams, how did she feel about playing a character who perhaps fears emotional connection more than actual monsters?

“It’s interesting,” says Ortega. “I think sometimes, something really traumatic and terrible happens to you, like a hug, and you just pretend it never happened. That’s kind of what Wednesday does. She really lets her guard down with Enid at the end of the first season, and in the second season, she doesn’t want to be questioned on her relationship with Enid. She’s become family – it’s one of those undeniable things.

“And yes, Wednesday isn’t very vulnerable in general, because she’s usually the smartest in the room. But she never denies her love, hate or passion for her family – and Enid sort of naturally becomes that. It’s nice, because people don’t tend to question Wednesday anyway. So she doesn’t really have to talk about it – she just does it.”
Burton, meanwhile, notes how essential clothes are to nailing the vibe of each character.

Wednesday. Thing in episode 202 of Wednesday. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

COME TO LIFE

“It’s so beautiful to see these characters come to life,” he muses. “Once you get the clothes on, you start to feel the thing. I can see it from afar – people become these characters. I mean, with Steve, we were talking about the character’s look – and I gave him an Edgar Allan Poe action figure as my inspiration!”

“That was the key,” adds Buscemi. “Because when I rewatched the first series, I didn’t know how this character was going to look. And in season one, there’s this statue of Edgar Allan Poe – and Tim had drawn a picture in his script too.”

Burton also notes how, in turn, the actors surprise him.

“I remember on the first day of season one, Jenna was there before anybody else,” he recalls. “She was watching everything – she knows more than I know sometimes. And that’s the beauty of it. We have scripts and everything, but we go in each day, and everybody knows their character, and they surprise me. I just love it – it keeps it feeling fresh. It’s like we’re making little movies.”

“Tim loves actors,” says Buscemi. “You could just feel that from him. I remember when I worked with him on Big Fish, my character was a poet. Just for myself, I wrote some stupid poem in a notebook. Tim noticed it and said, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get a shot of that.’ I was like, really? So whatever you have to offer, he’s going to use.”

To which Burton quips, “I wish you’d publish that book of poetry!”

Finally, having also worked on the Beetlejuice sequel and now returned to Wednesday – which also boasts some of his familiar animated style –are we seeing Burton revisit the more romantic, melancholic vibe of his early career?

“Well, I started out as an animator,” he says. “My first film was a short, stop-motion animated film. It just fit the storyline with this, because it’s a story being told by kids. We wanted to give it a certain kind of quality, like when I was a student just making an animated film out of found objects.

“It was low budget, because we couldn’t film this sequence in live action – it would have been too expensive. So, it just fit with children telling a weird story by a fireplace. It’s fun for me to do that again.”

• Part 1 of Wednesday season two is available now on Netflix. Part 2 arrives on September 3.