This weekend (March 11), Jenna Ortega will make her debut on Saturday Night Live (SNL), and everyone is excited to see if she will do a skit featuring the title character of her hit Netflix series Wednesday. Everyone except Jenna Ortega that is.
In the first promo video for Ortega’s appearance on SNL, the 20-year-old actress is seen reading a script for a promo skit that some of the SNL writers would like her to try. Of course, the skit centers on the viral dance she created for her Wednesday Addams character.
Ortega tries to be as nice as possible when she tells the writers that she’d rather try a joke that wasn’t so obvious. “Honestly, this is really well written,” Ortega says as she looks over the comedy script. “I don’t feel like I wanna do the Wednesday dance for promo because we’ve seen so much of that already, and I think it’s time to do something new.”
Then, the camera pulls back to reveal that the three writers, Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy – known collectively as the New York-based comedy troupe Please Don’t Destroy – are dressed in a similar black outfit that Wednesday Addams wears during her dance sequence on the series.
All three of them look disappointed but don’t want to admit that they are. “We didn’t want to do the dance either so…” Marshall said.
Ortega, however, can tell that they did want to do the dance, so she indulges the idea just for them and performs it half-heartedly as Higgins and Herlihy go all out with the moves. Marshall records it on his phone. “Perfect!” he says.
Currently, Ortega is promoting the release of Scream VI on Friday (March 10). The first reviews are coming in, and so far, it’s Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes with 87 reviews. Also, if you missed it, Ortega was recently a guest on the YouTube hit talk show Hot Ones where she obliterated all 10 wings without flinching.
Watch the full SNL hosting promo with Jenna Ortega below.