Jenna Ortega Called “Entitled And Toxic” By A Hollywood Producer On Twitter
20-year-old Jenna Ortega, star of Netflix’s Wednesday, was recently a guest on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert and said that she became her character’s protector and would rewrite lines in the script she didn’t like without telling the script supervisor. Jenna called her own behavior “unprofessional.” Well, a veteran Hollywood producer named Steven DeKnight decided to dunk her too and dragged her for being “entitled and toxic.”
In case you missed it, here’s what Jenna said about changing things in the script she thought weren’t very Wednesday Addams. According to the New York Post:
“Her being in a love triangle? It made no sense. There was a line about a dress she has to wear for a school dance and she says, ‘Oh, my God, I love it. Ugh — I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ I had to go, ‘No.’
“There were times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines,” Ortega admitted. “The script supervisor thought I was going with something and then I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I’d have to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”
So when Steven, whose writing credits include Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the series Spartacus, heard Jenna dish how she undermined the show’s writers, he stretched out his thumbs and took to Twitter to label Jenna as “entitled and toxic” even though she’s never worked with her.
“She’s young, so maybe she doesn’t know any better (but she should),” he continued in a Twitter thread. “She should also ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked about how difficult she was and refused to perform the material.”
While he loves her work, he continued, life is “too short” to “deal with people” like her in the industry.
I love talking with actors about their lines/stories. But by the nature of the beast, they don’t have the full picture (in TV) of where the story is going and why some lines are needed for the whole to make sense. https://t.co/jewHLX4bKk
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 7, 2023
This kind of statement is beyond entitled and toxic. I love her work, but life’s too short to deal with people like this in the business.
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 7, 2023
Steven made those comments over a week ago, and since then, he’s been dragged by Jenna’s defenders and has been hitting back at them. But he eventually pulled back and praised her:
Absolutely! Again, I can't stress this enough: She's an amazing talent. It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly, and also I'll admit that writers are on edge because of the impending strike, myself included. A perfect storm. https://t.co/hQw6qBseIn
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 15, 2023
My comments were about breaking the trust that we all have on set and during the production process that our creative differences will stay in the family. it was never about her creative concerns, which were valid. https://t.co/bl98cnjJCr
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 15, 2023
She's fantastic, which I keep saying over and over. It was an unfortunate gaffe to say that publicly. We've all had them. Learning experience for everyone. Me included. https://t.co/mEr0GobS85
— Steven DeKnight (@stevendeknight) March 15, 2023
Jenna Ortega herself has yet to respond, but my guess is that she’s saving her response for an interpretive dance she’ll do on the second season of Wednesday. And yes, she’ll probably dance to a goth version of Britney Spears’ Toxic, and yes, it will go viral.
Pics: INSTARImages