A new trailer for Netflix’s upcoming Addams Family series Wednesday was revealed during the show’s Saturday panel at New York Comic Con, with first looks at Fred Armisen and Christina Ricci’s roles.
In the show’s official nearly three-minute first look, the ghoulish high school experience that awaits Wednesday is detailed, while Armisen’s Uncle Fester and Ricci’s Nevermore professor Miss Thornhill are both teased.
During the panel, Armisen appeared as a surprise guest and confirmed he did actually shave his head for the role. “I shaved my head because this was like a role as soon as I heard about it I was like ‘Oh, I gotta be Fester.’ I really wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it right and not like have like a bald cap or anything. So, I just shaved my head and I was proud to do it.”
“And tonight I’m going to do it again,” Armisen joked.
In an exclusive clip also featured during the panel, Wednesday and Fester reconnect after Armisen’s character has flown in to see the Addams Family teen and check-in on how she’s doing. Fester admits he did the same for her father, Gomez, before telling Wednesday what he’s heard: “He filled me in on what’s been going on: Monsters, murder, mayhem — what fun.”
During the panel, stars Jenna Ortega, Luis Guzmán and Gwendoline Christie, as well as showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar all teased the characters, how they transformed for the parts with the help of the hair, makeup and costuming teams, as well as how the show will honor previous iterations and stand on its own as something that fans haven’t seen yet.
“When people have that nistolgic factor come into play or they’ve they’ve already seen a version of this family, they have an expectation that comes with that and I hope that people realize how much care and respect went into this and how much I would like to protect this character and this family,” she told the panel crowd. “It’s not going to be something that you’ve seen before.”
Ortega called the show “its own different reality” before promising, “it’s very special and very odd.”
“I hope that people are able to run with that and lose themselves in that and appreciate it for the isolated project that it is,” she added.
“I think what’s extraordinary is that there is all of that expectation, but because Tim is so collaborative — and I never expected that for someone to say what do you think and what do you want — it’s an amazing opportunity,” Christie said at another point. “Everybody was so collaborative and kind and we all share the enthusiasm of the Addams Family and the opportunity to create something.”
The panelists all had glowing responses about working with director and producer Burton, with Millar calling it a great collaboration. “He was incredibly respectful of the scripts as well, and it all starts with the script,” the Wednesday co-showrunner said. “We’ve never had better notes or fewer notes from the director.”
Millar reiterated that they made the show to watch like an eight-hour Tim Burton movie but promised that it will straddle something that builds on the existing universe while also being its own thing.
“It’s really important that the show feels like The Addams Family — the next iteration of that — but feels like it’s honoring the past while still making something different and new,” Millar said.
For Armisen, whether the story is tackled from a movie or TV approach is less important. “Because the sets and everything look so great and the costumes and all the actors are so great, I don’t even think about if it’s episodic or a movie,” he said. “I would just rather be in the scene and just make the scene work.”
Speaking to how Wednesday would explore its young adult elements, Ortega told the panel, “I think having gone through the teenage experience myself [was] incredibly informative. I think any teenager can relate to wanting to create an identity outside of your family or kind of being thrown out into the world for the first time on your own and wanting to be independent.”
“A lot of times in these stories it’s about the timid girl who comes into a situation and then blossoms,” Gough shared about how Wednesday’s journey is different from other narratives with young female leads. “The great thing about this show is Wednesday knows exactly who she is. She sees the world in black and white, and she has an arc — it’s a very tiny arc, but it’s still there and it’s still impactful.”
That young adult element — and their previous history with Smallville — may have been part of why Millar and Gough’s idea for a Wednesday project got off the ground, the duo said. “People have approached before and have been denied and for us it was like — I guess the legacy of Smallville helped in terms of finding the character in a chapter of their life that no one knows.”
“Smallville was our first show and this is like the next leg,” Gough added.
As for what fans can expect of Wednesday’s time at the school, Ortega noted how being an “outcast in a sea of outcasts” is going to challenge Wednesday, who is an assured kid now living in her parents’ shadows.
“Wednesday who has always been so bold and so confident in herself and has never really had a question or to be thrown into an environment like Nevermore, [where] Morticia and Gomez reigned,” she explained, “it’s really frustrating or obnoxious to be stuck in the shadow of that sort of thing or not have an identity outside of your own.”