Trivia / Wednesday

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• Acting for Two: Jenna Ortega plays both Wednesday Addams and her ancestor, Goody Addams.
• Actor-Inspired Element: Wednesday's dance in "Woe What A Night" was completely choreographed by Jenna Ortega herself. It included an homage to Wednesday’s odd dancing in the 1960s series. She also decided that Wednesday should not blink.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Both Jenna Ortega and her character Wednesday are Latina.
  • Emma Myers is a big fan of K-pop and so is her character Enid.
• Approval of God:
  • Christina Ricci, who played Marilyn Thornhill in the show and had previously played Wednesday in the '90s live-action films, gave her full approval to Jenna Ortega's performance as the character. Christopher Lloyd (Fester) also gave the series his seal of approval.
  • Not only does Lady Gaga approve the use of "Bloody Mary" with the Wednesday dance meme, she jumped in with both feet first.
• Auteur License: Tim Burton knew exactly how he wanted the show to look so he used just a single camera and shot only what he deemed necessary^note rather than doing multiple takes of master shots and close-ups so that editors have more material to work with. This had the effect of stymieing executives, as they could ask for changes and alternatives but there simply was nothing there for the editors to use.
• Billing Displacement: Both Riki Lindhome and Jamie McShane are billed above Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, and Emma Myers, despite the latter three having more screen time and plot relevance as Wednesday's love interests and roommate, respectively.
• California Doubling: Although it supposedly takes place in Vermont, the show was shot in Romania.
  • Exterior shots of areas of Jericho town, Pilgrim World, the sheriff's residence and the Nevermore quad were entirely constructed for the project at Romania's Buftea Studios, with 70 sets across six sound stages which also served as the location for internal scenes like Ophelia Hall, Crackstone's Crypt and others.
  • Many of the exterior and aerial shots of Nevermore Academy were shot at Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni, Prahova County — rooftops were enhanced for a different look more similar to gothic architecture through CGI.
  • Interior shots of Nevermore Academy were done at Monteoru Palace/House, places like Larissa Weems's office and the area just outside of it that features a unique mezzanine with a detailed railing. Further locations of the interior were done at Niculescu-Dorobanțu Mansion.
  • The Gates Mansion was filmed at the Olga Greceanu House with several changes made to it by the crew.
  • Thornhill's botanical classroom, exterior and interior, were shot at Bucharest Botanical Garden
  • The Poe Cup was filmed across two lakes called Brănești and Șterbei.
  • In the first episode, Wednesday's highscool setting was filmed at the Polytechical University of Bucharest while the swimming pool was at the Olympic Basin of the Dinamo Sports Park.
  • The Jericho Train station at the Regal Train Station in Sinaia — the shot with a train passing actually shows it to be The Blue Arrow, Romania's medium and short distance trainset type.
• Casting Gag: In this series, Hunter Doohan portrays Tyler Galpin, the son of a police sheriff with a dead wife, and is secretly the monster that killed multiple people in a killing spree. In the 2020 series Your Honor, Doohan portrays Adam Desiato, the son of a high court judge with a dead wife, and is secretly the perpetrator who accidentally killed a man in a hit-and-run.
  • Tyler Galpin is also a love interest of Wednesday, who is acquainted to some of his victims. On the other hand, Adam Desiato is in a romantic relationship with Fia, who is the sister of his victim.
  • Both homicide cases are also pinned on other men: Xavier Thorpe from Wednesday and Kofi Jones from Your Honor are both wrongfully accused and jailed.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Emma Myers originally auditioned for Wednesday but ended up playing Enid instead.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, the titular heroine is voiced by actress and singer Rina Endo, which previously did voice acting before, being one of her well-known roles Hina Kubota from Barakamon and Drussila in Granblue Fantasy.
• Creator Backlash: In a interview with The Times U.K., Jenna Ortega revealed that she was reluctant to accept the role of Wednesday at first because she feared it would affect her acting career, and that she only ended up doing it because Tim Burton was involved. She certainly would have preferred the show to be "a nice little gem" rather than a global phenomenon.
• Dawson Casting:
  • As expected, most of the students are played by adults. Percy Hynes White, Hunter Doohan and Joy Sunday were all in their early to late 20s during the filming of the first season.
  • An adult example. Luis Guzman is in his mid sixties, while Gomez is apparently over fifteen years younger, having been in high school in 1990 (in real life, Guzman turned 34 that year.)
• Dyeing for Your Art: Fred Armisen shaved his head to play Uncle Fester.
• Fake American: Naomi J Ogawa, Georgie Farmer and Moosa Mostafa are British and play the American Yoko Tanaka, Ajax Petropolus and Eugene Ottinger.
• Fake Mixed Race: Wednesday is mixed race with a white mother and Latino father. Jenna Ortega is fully Latina in real life.
• Friendship on the Set: Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers became incredibly close friends while filming the show. Even after the show's production ended, Ortega and Myers continued to regularly comment on each other's Instagram posts.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • The main trailer was released on August 17, 2022 - a Wednesday. The series itself also debuted on a Wednesday - November 23, 2022.
  • The show premiered one day before Thanksgiving Day and the villain is an outcast-hating Pilgrim.
• Method Acting: Jenna Ortega remarks in the behind the scenes video that in order to really capture Wednesday, she would go to fencing and cello lessons twice a week and would walk like her on the set.
• The Other Marty: Originally, Thora Birch was to be a regular on the series as dorm mother Tamara Novack. However, part way through filming, she was forced to leave the series due to a family emergency, leading to her character being replaced by Christina Ricci’s Marilyn Thornhill. This resulted in a delicious bit of irony since Thornhill turned out to be the main villain of the series and we got to see a past Wednesday go up against the present Wednesday. It is also the reverse of what happened with Ghost World where Ricci was originally supposed to play Birch's role.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Christina Ricci tends to play characters who are likable and sympathetic or at the very least someone the audience is meant to root for. Even Misty, her sociopathic character from Yellowjackets, has some redeeming qualities. Here, she gets to play someone unabashedly evil and cruel.
  • While Jenna Ortega has become famous in the horror circles as a Scream Queen, she is known largely for playing outgoing, friendly and upbeat characters, the exact opposite of Wednesday.
  • Gwendoline Christie's portrayal of the glamorous Larissa Weems is such a departure from her usual physical and less feminine roles that it's almost jarring how great she is at portraying the soft spoken but highly intelligent and dangerous Principal Weems.
• Production Posse: Tim Burton once again collaborates with composer Danny Elfman and costume designer Colleen Atwood for the series. He also reunites with Christina Ricci from Sleepy Hollow.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jenna Ortega revealed she was a big fan of the two 1990s Addams Family movies, and in particular of Wednesday, which made her seek the rest of Christina Ricci's works.
• Revival by Commercialization: This series brought a song that wasn't even in the series to top the charts. Thanks to a massively viral dance trend on TikTok where people did Wednesday's iconic dance to "Goo Goo Mucks" to a sped up remix of "Bloody Mary" by Lady Gaga. It was such that she released the song as the official single of Born This Way more than a decade after the album's release.
• Role Reprise: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Humberto Vélez reprises his role as Gomez Addams from the live-action films.
• Shrug of God: Christina Ricci has said she does not know if Laurel Gates is alive after the events of the first season.
• Star-Making Role: Following the release of the first season, Emma Myers became the breakout cast member of the show (not counting Jenna Ortega who was already well known) and quickly got many more job offers for other high profile projects.
• Tuckerisation: One of the shop windows seen in Jericho says "Millar & Gough Realty".
• Viral Marketing:
  • Netflix has created an official Twitter account for Wednesday, with tweets written by her in character.
  • A fake advertisement for Nevermore Academy, as well as a school website, were released by Netflix in late September.
• Wag the Director: Jenna Ortega stated that she "put [her] foot down" in season one with regards to writing and character beats for Wednesday that she felt were inconsistent, to the point of refusing to say certain lines or changing them right before filming.
• What Could Have Been:
  • This was not Tim Burton's first attempt at adapting The Addams Family, as he was previously attached to co-produce and co-write a stop-motion animated film under Illumination Entertainment back in 2010, until it was cancelled in 2013. He was also approached to direct The Addams Family (1991) until he turned it down due to being busy on Batman Returns at the time. He would finally get the chance to work with the family with this series.
  • Johnna Dias-Watson, Divina's actress, revealed that there was supposed to be a scene of Divina and Yoko dancing at the Rave'N, hinting at a romance between the two.
• Word of Gay: Johnna Dias-Watson revealed that Divina and Yoko are in a relationship, with a Deleted Scene revealing at the Rave'N with the two dancing together to a romantic song.

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