CALIFORNIA - 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 that 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. (BBC/Netflix)
