Renowned showrunner Steven DeKnight has re-addressed the controversy surrounding Jenna Ortega after he recently branded her as "beyond toxic."
It all started when 20-year-old Ortega appeared on an episode of Dax Shepherd's Armchair Expert podcast where she opened up about some of the challenges she faced while filming Netflix's hit show Wednesday.
"I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday," Ortega explained. "Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all."
She continued: "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.'"
The actress then went on to reveal that she started re-writing parts of the script, which she herself described as "almost unprofessional."
"There were times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines. 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."
DeKnight, best known for his work on Daredevil (2015) and Uprising (2018), seemed to take offense at the remarks made by Oretga, addressing the issue via a series of tweets.
"I love talking with actors about their lines/stories," he said when replying to a tweet quoting the actress' comments. "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."
He went on to state: "She’s young, so maybe she doesn’t know any better (but she should). 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.
"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," DeKnight added.
After the tweets received a mixed reaction from other social media users, including other writers as well as Ortega's fans, the showrunner has re-addressed the issue.
In two follow-up tweets, the 58-year-old clarified a few points.
"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," he wrote.
Then he doubled down on his clarification when replying to a fan that thanked him for being transparent.
"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," he added.
The hit show Wednesday has been renewed for season two by Netflix.
