Producer Steven DeKnight Slams "Entitled And Toxic" Jenna Ortega For "Badmouthing" 'Wednesday' Writers In Podcast Episode

Steven DeKnight, known for producing Daredevil and Spartacus, went on Twitter to share his thoughts on Jenna Ortega's remarks about Wednesday writers and their scripts. Ortega recently admitted on the Armchair Expert podcast that many of the original scripts from the Netflix hit didn't make sense to her from a character perspective, prompting her to change them.

"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,” she said. “Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all. 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 continued. "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."

After Ortega made headlines over the Wednesday scripts, DeKnight made a short Twitter thread to criticize the young actress. According to the filmmaker, Ortega's remarks are "beyond entitled and toxic." He writes, "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."

DeKnight adds, "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."

Yet, many were put off by DeKnight's criticism of the 20-year-old star, causing the producer to elaborate further on his tweets. He says he's actually critiquing Ortega for speaking publicly about the writers, though it didn't really seem like Ortega was "badmouthing" anyone at all. Then again, I understand why writers and producers would want to keep behind-the-scenes matters private.

"Okay, so from this point forward I'm just going to block the willfully obtuse comments about the Ortega kerfuffle," he clarifies, "To be clear, the issue isn't her expressing her opinion to the showrunner/writers. It's badmouthing them in public for how they wrote the character."

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