Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman will star as the characters of Morticia and Gomez Addams in Netflix’s approaching show, Wednesday.
Jenna Ortega stars as Wednesday and Isaac Ordonez stars as her brother Pugsley. In a recent issue of Vanity Fair, they exclusively shared a sneak peek of the Addams brood and all its gothic glory.
The first four of the eight episodes are directed by filmmaker Tim Burton. He will also executive produce the series from creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough. It will be his television debut.
Referred to as a “sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery,” the show chronicles the life of Wednesdays at Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for children viewed as different by society.
As per the synopsis, the teen “attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town and solve the supernatural mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago – all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.”
“We’ve never seen her as a teenage girl,” Ortega said in an interview with EW regarding the people’s favorite.
“It’s funny and sweet and almost charming to hear this 8-year-old’s obsession with murder and blood and guts. As she gets older, that nasty attitude or [those] biting remarks, it’s almost kind of hard not to make it sound like every other teenage girl…
“I’ve never had the opportunity to play an iconic character before. I know she’s well-loved and well-respected, and I just don’t want to mess her up.”
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Addams Family: An Introduction
In an interview with VF, Gough said Burton envisioned the creative aesthetic to radiate more of the Charles Addams cartoons, “which is Gomez shorter than Morticia, versus the kind of suave Raul Julia version in the movies.”
As for Guzman, he said, “He’s also incredibly debonair and romantic, and I think he has all those classic ingredients of the Gomez that we’ve seen come before, but he brings something also very different.”
Millar added, “That’s something that was very important to the show – that it didn’t feel like a remake or a reboot.”
Millar then describes how the film ought to be for the viewers.
“It’s something that lives within the Venn diagram of what happened before, but it’s its own thing. It’s not trying to be the movies or the ’60s TV show. That was very important to us and very important to Tim.”
Referring to the greatest character omission in the family portrait, Gough and Millar didn’t disclose much detail about Uncle Fester. The two didn’t even reveal which actor was notified to portray him.
“We have no comment on Uncle Fester,” Gough said. “Just watch the show.”
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