Wednesday star Jenna Ortega has opened up about her bond with Christina Ricci while filming the new Netflix show.
The Scream star takes on the iconic Addams Family role as Wednesday for a spin-off series which also features predecessor Christina Ricci in a brand new part.
Christina played the character in the 1991 film The Addams Family and its 1993 follow-up Addams Family Values.
Tim Burton directs Wednesday and also features Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as Wednesday’s parents, Morticia and Gomez Addams, as well as SNL’s Fred Armisen playing Uncle Fester.
In the new series, we find Wednesday Addams, a homicidal teen, joining Nevermore Academy, where she undertakes solving a supernatural case of a monstrous killer in a nearby town.
Speaking to E! Online about the show and her bond with the Hollywood legend, Jenna shared, “Playing Wednesday as a teenager—I think we had that conversation a little bit later.”
Jenna Ortega on her relationship with Christina Ricci
Speaking about Christina, the You alum added, “She related to a lot of the struggles or interesting challenges that made the job more fun or exciting in certain aspects, and that I really appreciated.”
Jenna also admitted that she and Christina discovered that playing Wednesday requires a lot of sarcasm, perhaps more than the average person.
“We both are a bit dry,” she explained.
“If we’re talking to each other, neither one of us can tell whether the other person is being serious or not. It’s kind of a fun game.”
In the same interview, Jenna also expressed her desire to work with Christina again, perhaps on her other hit TV series, Yellowjackets.
Although Christina’s presence on set made Jenna feel a little nervous at first, she told Screen Rant that she found a way to pay respect to Christina’s Wednesday while also putting her own spin on the character.
When is Wednesday on Netflix?
The new spin-off is a live-action series with eight episodes, directed by famed moviemaker and artist Tim Burton.
Burton is popular for his gothic fantasy work in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and the musical-to-movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
The show premiered on Netflix earlier this week on Wednesday (November 23).
It takes viewers on a winding murder-mystery story as Wednesday is sought to find out who was maiming and killing the residents of Jericho.