There are few characters as indelible as the macabre Wednesday Addams. The pigtailed daughter of the Addams family first appeared in a New Yorker cartoon by Charles Addams in 1938, and has jumped from the page to the screen several times in the nearly hundred years since. “Wednesday Addams is one of the coolest characters of all time,” says Jenna Ortega, the star of the adapted series Wednesday, which premiered in 2022 and returned with a second season in 2025. Ortega plays the titular character herself. “To have gotten the opportunity to play her once was incredible, and then to be able to slip into the costume and tone again, it’s so much fun.”

The success of the first season may have broken streaming records, created viral social media trends, and ushered in Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award nominations, yet for Ortega, the sense of pride came by a different measurement. “Success for me is more about feeling accomplished and being able to put something out into the world and feel proud,” the actor says. “It’s wonderful that it’s been received so well, because there’s a lot of pressure.” 

The work that Ortega and the writers put into crafting this iteration of the goth hero in Season 1 created room to explore new facets in the sophomore season. “She brings such incredible intelligence, humor, and instinct to the role,” says co-showrunner Miles Millar of Ortega. “I think something that is always true for us is that Wednesday can be a confounding character. She never reacts to situations in an expected way. Wednesday always keeps us honest. It’s just been great to see the evolution of the character and her performance, which appears effortless but really isn’t. There’s so much thought and care and intelligence going into every line.”

Returning to the series and to the character for the second season wasn’t made easier by the worldwide attention, but Millar and fellow showrunner Alfred Gough had all the faith in their lead actor. “She’s so locked and loaded into Wednesday’s character,” says Gough. “She hadn’t done it for probably two years, but came back in, and on the first day was completely Wednesday again.” 

Ortega brought the same intelligence and care to her additional role as a producer of Season 2, which took her deeper into the creative process behind the series. “It’s been a really amazing experience being a producer on Wednesday,” says Ortega. “Now that I’m familiar with the team and we all know each other and have worked together for so long, it’s definitely a comfortable, safe environment to ask questions and learn a bit more.” 

There is also much for her character to learn in Season 2, as Wednesday returns to her school, Nevermore Academy, with new supernatural mysteries afoot, dark family secrets brewing, and relationships shifting around her. “It’s been so cool being a part of conversations, talking about the color of blood, or the color of prosthetics, and if the brain isn’t big enough –– things like that, that are quite silly, but really do make such a big difference on the show,” says Ortega. “But then also in the constructive workspace, to be able to learn from someone like Tim [Burton] firsthand is a very special experience.”

Executive producer Tim Burton, who also directed eight episodes across the two seasons, has been a meaningful collaborator for Ortega, who also starred in Burton’s 2024 film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. “As an actor, you want to take the director’s lead and make sure that they’re happy and comfortable, so it was nice getting to know him a bit more,” Ortega says. “I was maybe a little bit more confident or even rebellious in my takes because I knew that he’d always bring me back or would always get what he needed. He allowed me the room to play, which is really lucky.” 

Burton trusted Ortega from the very beginning to craft Wednesday. “There’s got to be somebody who has it in their heart and soul, and that’s what we felt with Jenna,” he says. “There was no question about it. That’s who the character is, and she brings so much to it. She’s a real equal part of and partner in this process. She’s smart, she’s easy and fun to work with, and she knows her character.”

What Ortega sees in the character hasn’t changed, even though Wednesday, the ultimate outcast, is now the central character of one of the most popular shows in the world. In Season 2, Wednesday herself has gained newfound popularity at Nevermore, a concept far more frightening to the teen than any eerie enemy she’s faced. “That’s the strange thing about the dynamic of the show, and maybe that’s why it works so well. Wednesday rejects mainstream ideas and concepts and attention, and everybody on the show doesn’t,” says Ortega. 

It’s a new frontier for Wednesday to navigate, but in the hands of an actor who understands her inside and out, the character always stays true to her extremely individual self. “She’s such an admirable, honest, truthful character who is a loner. The only people we deal with every day are the people in our head. It’s just us in there. She’s a very easy character to latch onto.”