Netflix’s Wednesday has been a resounding success. Telling the story of the daughter of Gomes and Morticia Addams, fans initially find Wednesday in hot water after getting revenge on her brother’s tormentors with a bag of piranhas. This leads to her being expelled from school and sent to Nevermore Academy, the mysterious learning institution for outcasts that her parents attended.
However, assimilation isn’t easy, which is fine for Wednesday as she does all she can to remain a loner. As well as navigating the new social environment, she’s forced to uncover the secrets of the school as a string of gruesome murders seems to follow her shortly after she arrives at Nevermore. The most popular series on Netflix at the moment, fans are already calling for season two.
Wednesday has made an instant star out of leading lady Jenna Ortega, who is currently on the promotional run for it. During a new interview on the TODAY show, she addressed one of her character’s most notable features; that she doesn’t blink.
Netflix recently explained that the idea came “after trying one take where [Ortega] didn’t blink”, leaving director Tim Burton “so enamoured with the result he told Jenna Ortega not to blink anymore when playing Wednesday. So she didn’t”.
Then, during her appearance on TODAY, Ortega said: “She doesn’t blink. [Tim Burton] likes it when I tilt my chin down and look through my eyebrows, kind of like a Kubrick stare, and then I relax all the muscles in my face.”
Ortega did express that she “got kinda annoying about it on set”, and that they “would have to restart a take if I started [blinking], because sometimes you start crying.”
“[It was] Romanian winter, there was all this wind in my face,” she concluded. “I learned to blink on other people’s lines.”
