Jenna Ortega on adapting to high expectations playing Wednesday

Jenna Ortega faced great expectations when it came to her role as Wednesday in the classic mock horror spinoff of ‘The Addams Family’, the popular Netflix series, ‘Wednesday’.

The original ‘The Addams Family’ was a well-known television show in its time, as a series in the ‘60s and remade into films in the ‘90s, with great generational nostalgia attached to it. Many fans who watched the show growing up will have much scrutiny for how the Addams Family’s teenage daughter is portrayed.

The expectations surrounding ‘Wednesday’

During the famed talk show, Hot Ones, on Thursday evening, Jenna Ortega and Chris Evans discussed her role as Wednesday, and the 20-year-old actress opened up about the high expectations fans had for her to succeed in her role and play a believable Wednesday.

“As far as expectations with something like Wednesday, you just have to realize that you can’t fight nostalgia,” Ortega observed. “All you can do is just lean into it a bit.”

Jenna Ortega on how to manage expectations

Jenna Ortega has a strategy when it comes to managing expectations — she acknowledges the significance of the nostalgia for the original show, but that is not her main focus.

“Giving a new take and making it your own to a new generation, so that they’re introduced to the character, was a real balancing act,” she Ortega confessed.

“So I found that as long as I studied the old material and took traits and aspects that I knew I could easily weave into my own iteration, it felt like a good, happy medium.”

In an interview, with The Cut, Ortega touched on the issue with similar sentiment.

“As long as you’ve got a few undertones of acknowledging and respecting what’s come before you, I think you have more freedom to put your own taste and style in there and still make it fresh and new,” Ortega explained.

Ortega talks teamwork

The actress is a woman of many talents, as Ortega, the new ambassador for Adidas, also has an athletic streak. She has played on a soccer team, and that experience has helped her to understand the importance of teamwork, and encouraging your colleagues.

“I am so happy to watch people succeed,” Ortega said. “And it’s really wonderful when you’re able to work on a project and you all can celebrate something together.”

What really puts Ortega in a “bad mood”?

“But if there’s anything that’s going to put me in a bad mood, it’s if I feel like I’m not pushing myself or doing the best I possibly can. And it was the same way when I was younger playing soccer.”