*Jenna Ortega at the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Courtesy of Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images*

Actress Jenna Ortega says she “could have used [her] words better” when she spoke about dialogue changes for ‘Wednesday,’ while questioning the writers’ intentions.

Ortega’s controversial words happened during her appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast last year, sparking internet backlash.

Speaking to Vanity Fair on Tuesday, the actress said, “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better.”

Ortega spoke about getting “unprofessional” when trying to make her character Wednesday Addams feel warranted.

“There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional, in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” she said. “The script supervisor thought that I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things. I grew very, very protective of [Wednesday], but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”

“Women have to be princesses,” she recently told Vanity Fair. “They have to be elegant and classy and so kind and then when they’re outspoken, they can’t be tamed and they’re a mess.”

Ortega continued the conversation over the backlash for her words in 2023, saying how everything felt “magnified.”

“It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself,” Ortega recalls about her remarks being echoed throughout pop culture and mainstream media. “I’m aware of my position as an actor. I know that I’m not in charge. But I think with someone like Wednesday, who is in every scene, it only makes sense for that person to be that involved in what’s going on behind the scenes because she’s onscreen every second of the project.”

Legendary filmmaker and executive producer of ‘Wednesday,’ Tim Burton says he appreciates Ortega’s directness; “She’s very no-nonsense, and I find that very refreshing and beautiful and artistic. I saw, from day one, she’s very aware. She’s more aware, sometimes, than I am.”

‘Wednesday’ originally debuted in November 2022 and instantly became a massive hit for Netflix, racking in more than 1 billion hours watched within the first 3 weeks of release, making it Netflix’s third most popular show at the time. Now, with over 1,718,800,000 hours watched, it has become the most popular Netflix series of all time. Season 1 was nominated for 12 Emmys, winning 4.

MORE NEWS