Jenna Ortega Confesses to Terrible Working Conditions in “Wednesday,” and Was “Hysterical and Crying a Lot” on Many Days

Last Updated on 02/15/2023 by てんしょく飯

Jenna Ortega, the star of “Wednesday,” confesses that the working environment caused her to have trouble sleeping and often to cry hysterically. The working environment in the video industry is not a good one.

Jenna Ortega has painful memories of filming “Wednesday”

The drama “Wednesday” was a huge hit when it was released on Netflix in 2022. The lead actress, Jenna Ortega, was popular before this film, appearing in the drama “Stuck in the Middle” and the film “Scream,” but “Wednesday” became her masterpiece. However, behind the success of the drama, she also found herself in a tough situation. In a recent Q&A panel by Netflix, she confessed.

She said, “I would go to the set two hours early, work 12 to 14 hours a day, and then take some kind of online lesson when I got home, or I would already have my cello teacher waiting for me at home. Things were always going on, and if I had time on the weekends, if I didn’t have a shoot six days a week, it was like, ‘Great, then I’ll book your lesson for that day.'”

In addition to a fairly long work day, they had to go home and take lessons for work, usually a six-day work week, and lessons were also scheduled for the weeks when they were not. The working environment could be considered quite black, and Jenna said, “I couldn’t get any sleep. I was distraught. There were many times when my father would answer my phone calls while I was hysterically crying hysterically,” she said.

Jenna has previously stated that she began practicing cello and fencing several months before the shoot and continued throughout the shoot. Director Tim Burton told her not to worry about playing the cello, but she wanted to get as good as she could, which is why she spent so much time in lessons.

Nevertheless, in terms of working hours and the fact that she was crying and calling her family every day, the people responsible for the “Wednesday” scene and her schedule management were not fulfilling their responsibilities. However, the fact is that on the sets of Hollywood TV dramas, work hours exceeding 12 hours a day are chronic.

The working environment in the video industry is not good.

The working environment in the film industry, and not only on the set of “Wednesday,” is not good. Leighton Meester, who played Blair in the drama “Gossip Girl,” once revealed that filming started at 5:00 in the morning and ended at 8:00 at night. However, she once said that she was more comfortable in her skin that way, as acting is characterized by the ability to work all at once and rest all at once.

However, this must be because she is a popular actor and is paid well. Backstage staff are paid much less than actors, and it is difficult for them to take long periods of time off. For example, in 2021, the International Alliance of Theatre and Screen Employees (IATSE), which has about 60,000 staff members working in the film and television industry, negotiated for a contract for its members and agreed to a 3% annual wage increase, but inflation is 5.4% in the US, which is below that figure. The new contract also included a 10-hour gap between shoots, which, according to the Seattle Times, means a situation where a 14-hour work day is allowed.

This is the same in Japan. There are also many people who are not part of a company, often freelancers or freelance apprentices whose wages range from zero to several hundred dollars, but whose working hours are from early morning until the last train, with no days off. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who made the film “Truth” set in France, is working to improve the working environment in the video industry, saying he was surprised and impressed by the environment in France, where an eight-hour workday and weekends off are observed even during film shoots.

There are also serious problems of sexism and racism, including sexual violence, exclusion of women, and prejudiced remarks against non-white people, to name just a few of the working environment problems. Even though it is a special industry, it is not enough to simply say, “That’s just the way it is in this industry.