Jenna Ortega Steps Into the Light

[Celerity]

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/jenna-ortega-cover-interview

https://archive.ph/IyvPt





On the eve of Wednesday’s cultural domination, “Tim” invited Jenna Ortega to his house for a meeting. I love when this happens in Hollywood conversations: casually, not even pretentiously, legends referred to by first names only, as Ortega does over a clandestine morning coffee. Here is Wednesday on a Sunday at Velvet, a moody cocktail bar at the Corinthia hotel in London.



Tim, in this case, is Tim Burton, the mad goth genius behind Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Wednesday’s director and executive producer. Even before the biting teen take on The Addams Family exploded into Emmy nominations and TikTok choreo and tween girls’ birthday party themes, the hallowed filmmaker wanted to talk to Ortega, his show’s then 20-year-old star, about a second season. She dutifully compiled ideas.



A week after that, Ortega arrived at Burton’s California home, the stuff of legend itself: “You walk in and it’s the huge throne from Alice in Wonderland.” Ortega sets the scene. “There’s a jar of eyeballs in the bathroom.” Burton is known to tote figurines, “his little creatures,” she says, in his pocket at all times. They small-talked, though Burton doesn’t really do small talk. A season two of Wednesday, yes, but first something else. “He just pretty much plopped a script in my hand,” Ortega says, “and it was Beetlejuice.”



Technically, it was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to Burton’s camp-horror 1988 original. Almost 40 years in the making, the film arrives this month and revives Michael Keaton from the undead alongside original cast members Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara, plus a terrifyingly vampy Monica Bellucci (with whom Burton is now in a relationship). An overcome Ortega thanked Burton and drove off, but after only 15 minutes, curiosity killing her, she pulled over on the Pacific Coast Highway, stared out over the rocks and sea, and then devoured the script: “Instantly I was like, ‘Oh man, they’ve done a thing here.’ ”

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Wednesday Addams | Dance Scene | Netflix

[LudwigPastorius]

1. "Tim" invited Jenna Ortega to his house for a meeting.

OK. As long as "Danny" wasn't there.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/20/oscar-nominated-composer-danny-elfman-accused-of-sexual-assault-by-second-woman