Jenna Ortega finds herself an unfortunate scapegoat on the writers strike picket line

Jenna Ortega

The true enemy of the Writers Guild of America strike is, in fact, the networks and studios (represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP). Big bosses like David Zaslav are the typical goal for picket line jokes, however some writers have discovered one other, extra unlikely goal: Wednesday star Jenna Ortega.

The origins of Ortega’s unfortunate scapegoating are the notorious interview she did on Armchair Expert earlier this yr, whereby she forged aspersions on the high quality of writing on her hit Netflix collection. “There were times on that set where I almost became unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines,” she mentioned. “The script supervisor thought that I was like going with something and then I would have to sit down with the writers and they would be like ‘Wait, what happened to this scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things.”

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Writers took umbrage with this omission at the time, and a few of them held on to a grudge. “Jenna Ortega better be back from NY for her afternoon shift on the picket line,” author Nick Adams (BoJack Horseman) tweeted following Ortega’s look on the Met Gala pink carpet on Monday. Karen Joseph Adcock (Yellowjackets) retweeted with the remark, “Rewriting is writing! See you at the line, Jenna!”

Variety shared a photograph from the picket line of Brandon Cohen (Disney Channel’s Just Roll With It) with an indication that learn: “Without writers, Jenna Ortega will have nothing to punch up!”

It’s comprehensible why Ortega’s feedback ruffled feathers, and she or he is probably going one among the better-paid stars in the enterprise in comparison with the common working actor. Nevertheless, Ortega’s tales from the Wednesday set truly illuminate how even a undertaking’s lead actor will be overworked and ill-used. The schedule was about eight months of continuous work during which she was not solely performing for 12-14 hours a day, however was additionally attempting to slot in cello classes to make her character extra real looking. She was both explicitly or implicitly (by means of severe stress for a younger girl to be carrying an total manufacturing) inspired to work even whereas sick, an sickness that turned out to be COVID-19. “I did not get any sleep. I pulled my hair out,” she recalled of the shoot at a Q&A for the collection. “There’s so many FaceTime calls that my dad answered of me hysterically crying.”

Ultimately, although Ortega may have chosen her phrases extra properly (or no less than been extra discerning about sharing them), the entity accountable for all of that is Netflix. After all, the notoriously poor circumstances for writers at that streamer are absolutely not conducive to creating the greatest work, which is one among the points WGA is protesting. If Hollywood handled its writers pretty, maybe the Wednesday set can be rather more harmonious.