Jenna Ortega Responds To Backlash Over Rewriting 'Wednesday' Lines

21-year-old Jenna Ortega has revisited the controversial comments she made about tweaking the script for Netflix’s hit show "Wednesday."

Ortega, who plays the gothic teen sleuth, shed light on her intentions behind her remarks in March 2023, in which she admitted to rewriting her character's lines.

More than a year later, Jenna Ortega assured everyone that her intentions were anything but disrespectful, aiming instead to bring authenticity to her "Wednesday" role.

After her comments about rewriting some of her lines for Netflix's hit series, "Wednesday," online outlets quickly cast her in a less-than-flattering light, painting Jenna Ortega as petulant and disrespectful. According to Vanity Fair, one pop culture podcast even posed the provocative question, "Is Jenna Ortega the most toxic actress in Hollywood?"

“To be fair,” she told the outlet in a new interview before pausing as she reflected on the situation. “I think I probably could have been….” Ortega took another extremely long pause, thinking about what she wanted to say.

When she finally broke the awkward silence, the actress said, “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that. I think, oftentimes, I’m such a rambler,” before chuckling. “I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better.”

Ortega quickly learned how the celebrity media machine operates, experiencing how a few fiery quotes can be taken from a long interview and spread like wildfire across the internet.

“Everything that I said felt so magnified….," she told Vanity Fair of the controversy. "It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself…."

“You’re never going to please everybody, and as someone who naturally was a people pleaser, that was really hard for me to understand,” she continued. “Some people just may not like you…and that’s entirely fine.”

In fact, “I got sick of myself last year," she joked. “My face was everywhere…so it’s like, fair enough if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too.”

During her March 2023 appearance on "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard," Ortega discussed the specific parts of the script she had altered.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down on a set in the way that I had to on 'Wednesday' because it’s so easy to fall into that category, especially with this type of show,” Ortega said, per Deadline. “Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all."

She added, "Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about this dress that she has to wear for a school dance, and she says, ‘Oh, my god, I love it! I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.’”

Ortega expressed that she felt "protective" of her character and, although she was not fond of some of the show's "emotional" arcs, she acknowledged their necessity.

“There were times on that set where I even became unprofessional, in a sense, where I just started changing lines," Ortega continued. "The script supervisor thought I was going with something, and then I would have to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”

Ortega wished to become a producer of "Wednesday," and her dreams are coming true as the second season begins production.

As a producer on the show, which started filming in Dublin earlier this year, Ortega now has the authority to offer input on everything from prosthetics to the show's intensely dramatic cello pieces. “Things like that, I live for,” Ortega said with a smile.

Tim Burton, who directed the first season, praised the actress for her blunt opinions. “She’s very direct. She’s very no-nonsense, and I find that very refreshing and beautiful and artistic," he said. "She could direct it if she wanted to."

"I saw, from day one, she’s very aware," he added. "She’s more aware, sometimes, than I am.”