Jenna Ortega Talks Wednesday Addams Transformation for New Tim Burton Series (Exclusive)

Jenna Ortega and Brittany Snow opened up to “Extra’s” Katie Krause about their new horror flick “X,” but first Katie had to get the scoop on Jenna’s upcoming role as Wednesday Addams.

Ortega plays the beloved character in Tim Burton’s new Netflix series “Wednesday,” and the 19-year-old actress explained how she wanted to make the character her own.

“She’s already been played to perfection in the past so there’s nothing I can do to better,” she said, adding, “I’ve really worked on not ripping anybody off and kind of creating my own thing.”

Jenna continued, “And the thing about this Wednesday is because it is an eight-hour-long series, we’ve never spent so much time with her before. She’s always been the one-liner and, you know, the one-off. So it’s really interesting getting to know her to create more dimension to her as an individual but also giving an emotional arc for a character that doesn’t really have any emotion.”

As far as working with Burton, she said, “Tim has been an incredible collaborator and, you know, not all directors are as open to input or improv as he is, and yeah, he’s been really supportive and also the most detailed-oriented director I’ve ever worked with.”

She offered up this example: “I have these bangs on my hair, on my head, and the first day of filming, he spent 10 minutes with the hairdresser’s comb plucking each and every strand until it looked the way he wanted it to look, and then he hair sprayed it like crazy.”

Jenna continued, “It’s been really interesting watching him work, but then also working on such an iconic character with him, I think that it’s made it a bit less nerve-racking than it is.”

Ortega also played Tara Carpenter in the recent “Scream” movie, but will she be back for more installments? “I’m not really allowed to say anything, nor do I know anything… I had a conversation with the directors the other day and I was pressuring them… and I don’t know anything.”

Katie also asked if Brittany will return to the “Pitch Perfect” franchise for a fourth movie. Snow gave some hope, saying, “We’ll always probably want to have more. We all are really, really close friends and so getting paid to sing and dance with your best girlfriends is, yeah, we would all do it, I’m sure.” She insisted, “I’m the last to know, so you’ll tell me about it before.”

The actresses went on to discuss “X,” about a group of filmmakers who set out to make an adult film on a Texas property only to find out later they must fight for their lives if they want to survive.

Katie described the movie as “bananas,” adding that it is “dark and gritty.” Snow told her, “That’s so funny that you said bananas, because, like, that’s how I always describe it. It’s just bananas.”

Brittany found the script “new and transgressive” for the horror genre, adding that director Ti West “really made all of his characters sort of deep and interesting and there was like a backstory to everybody, and it was taking an element of horror and thriller but making it something even more splashy and fun and outrageous.”

Ortega interjected, “I think outrageous is a good word for it.” She called Ti one of her favorite directors, explaining, “He’s so clear in his vision, and his vision was something that I agreed with very, very much that it was really just an exciting job for me. I think it’s the first time I’ve really worked on something and been curious to see how it turned out.”