Jenna Ortega ‘did not get any sleep’ while filming Wednesday

Actress Jenna Ortega revealed that her intense schedule for playing the titular role in ‘Wednesday’ was filled with back-to-back activities, and hardly gave her any room to sleep.

Film schedules are notoriously filled with long working hours for both cast and crew alike and ‘Wednesday’ was no exception.

In an interview with Variety, Ortega gave the details into her day-to-day during filming, which paints a realistic picture of an actor’s life.

“It was show up to set two hours early, do that 12-14 hour day, then go home and then get on a Zoom and have whatever lesson that I had,” Ortega said.

“Or show up to my apartment, my cello teacher was already waiting for me. It was just constantly going, and if you could on a weekend, if we weren’t shooting the sixth day that week, it was ‘All right, well then, we’ll get your lessons in on that day.’”

New Skills

Ortega was expected to learn an array of new skills to play her character. According to Screen Rant these include the cello, fencing, archery, canoeing, dancing and some German.

She was expected to learn these new skills in just a couple of months or few weeks, despite having a stunt double for the more risky skills she had to learn, such as fencing.

“I did not get any sleep,” Ortega continued. “I pulled my hair out. There’s so many FaceTime calls that my dad answered of me crying hysterically.”

A rising star

Despite the stresses Ortega faced on set, ‘Wednesday’ has smashed records and propelled the young actress to stardom with many praising her incredible performance.

‘Wednesday’ follows the morbid and gothic teen, Wednesday Addams, as she enrolls into Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts, all while learning to control her new psychic ability and unraveling a few mysteries.

The show was released on Nov 23 on Netflix where it set the record for most hours viewed in its first week for an English language series with over 341 million views. The previous record was held by ‘Stranger Things 4′ which held over 335 million views.

By the end of its first month, ‘Wednesday’ garnered over 1 billion views. On January 6, Netflix announced that the series has been renewed for a second season.