‘Wednesday’: How Lady Gaga joined Season 2 and Thing’s origin story

This article contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Wednesday.”

In a world where teenagers grapple with accusations of withering attention spans and a lack of motivation, Wednesday Addams managed to rouse from a coma and made the back-to-school scaries feel even more like a mind trip by … summoning Lady Gaga?

“Wednesday” returned for the second half of its sophomore season on Netflix this week, picking up right after Part 1’s ominous cliffhanger to reveal its moody teenage protagonist evaded potential death and that she was ready to dive back into the twisty world of deadly family secrets, monsterly situationships and friendship woes.

In the middle of the new threats and old mysteries are the show-stopping contributions from the pop superstar (and honorary mother to all outcasts, including her legion of Little Monsters, as her fanbase is called). Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, made a roughly two-minute appearance as Rosaline Rotwood, a deceased professor at Nevermore, the school for outcasts that Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) attends, with second sight capabilities that trigger a Freaky Friday/body-swap interlude between Wednesday and her estranged friend Enid (Emma Myers). The multi-hyphenate artist also provides the song “The Dead Dance” to score what’s poised to be another social media dance trend akin to Ortega’s viral Season 1 moves to the Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck.”

The Times spoke with creators and showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar to break down the season. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You know where we have to start: Lady Gaga. Tell me the origin story of this casting.

Gough: It all grew out of the viral dance from the first season. Some fan, who should collect a lot of money, put Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” [over the dance] — because it was “Goo Goo Muck”— and suddenly the dance became its own, whole new thing. We’ve always been huge Lady Gaga fans. And if there was anybody who was the ultimate outcast, it would be her. We just started a conversation with her and her team … is there a way for her to be involved in Season 2? We found this character — because obviously, she’s very busy and touring — that could be a small role, but it’s an impactful one. Out of that grew “The Dead Dance,” a song that she had which we heard a year ago and loved it. They’re like, “She’ll hold it for the show.” And we were like, “Oh my God.”

Millar: When we heard the lyrics, it was almost like she had written the song for the show. And we had this moment in Episode 7, which we’d always planned — we never wanted to repeat ourselves with Jenna doing a dance — but it feels like music and the show and dancing are integral now. To not scratch that itch creatively in Season 2, I think the audience would have been so disappointed. So it felt like, how do we honor the incredible Rave’N dance in Season 1, which became such an iconic moment, but do it in a way that’s different and celebrate new characters? That’s why we came up with the idea of the gala and seeing Agnes [Evie Templeton] and Enid come together. They’ve been antagonistic, and it felt like a beautiful moment of female friendship and blossoming and this incredible Gaga song was just like the icing on the cake.

I was expecting a long courting process when you’re trying to get Lady Gaga — like, writing letters.

Gough: The process wasn’t fast, but it was always very pleasant and complimentary. Everybody wanted it to work. I think that’s where we were starting from, is everybody wanted it to work.

There’s a lot of discussion right now about gaps between seasons, and obviously there were some factors that caused the gap here — namely the strikes, but also other projects. How do you feel about that, especially knowing the fan base skews younger? Is it harmful to maintaining that relationship with the material?

Millar: We certainly never wanted a three-year gap. I think the show feels like an event movie, in a weird way, so I think people are prepared to wait, but it’s not ideal. It’s something that we would never want ourselves, as viewers. It’s been gratifying that people have come back in the way they have, and we definitely feel their love for the show, but we had obstacles in terms of getting to that place, coming back. No one’s to blame. It’s just the reality of the strike and everything else. Now the focus is coming back quicker. We rolled right from production into the writers’ room; now we’re rolling right into production [on Season 3 in October]. We’re definitely on a faster cadence, and that’s certainly the plan moving forward.

That said, as hopefully you see on screen, it is a huge show. We have over 3,500 visual effects shots. We’re still finishing [the finale] this week. There are still shots that are going to be dropped in that monster fight on the roof, the fight in the clock tower. The most complex visual effects in the show actually is Professor Olaf, which is the Christopher Lloyd character. But that takes a lot of time and trial and error to get to the point where I think the show looks as good as it does. Certainly our imperative is to get the show back faster; I know Netflix has that goal and wish as well.

Gough: Our goal is we’ve got to create the best show we can create. As Miles said, it takes us a certain amount of time. When you get in your head like that, you can’t actually do your best work. I can guarantee you that’s something that the Netflix marketing department thinks about a lot. They certainly try to keep fans engaged online and through other ways. And the Netflix Houses now that have those [fan] experiences. Can you translate that and keep engagement? You’re right, there’s a lot of shows and movies out there and you want to be able to stay in the zeitgeist in that time when you’re not in the zeitgeist. But for us, at a certain point, we just got to create the show, try to keep all the noise outside.

In the space between Season 1 and 2, Jenna was pretty vocal about not connecting with the character choices from the first season. I’m curious how you felt as it happened? And what has “Wednesday” taught you about how to work with actors and how to consider their opinions or perspective about the material?

Gough: We’re not going to speak to some of that because we’ve spoken to it in previous interviews, but I think our philosophy has always been — from “Smallville” on down “Into the Badlands” — it is a collaboration and a conversation with the actors. We always say movies is a party, but a television show is like a family. They have to feel ownership. We had that with Jenna in Season 1 — she read all the scripts, she gave notes. She’s continued to do that in Season 2. She’s taken a more active role in terms of being in production meetings and understanding the marketing perspective and just having all of that. She’s a generational talent and she’s going to have a very long career, and the career will be more than just acting. Actors are the keeper of the world and they have to be able to [understand] their characters. We’ll take a good idea from anybody. You just want them to be engaged and to have good ideas and be thinking about their characters. It’s something we learned from John Wells, who we met with very early on, before we started running “Smallville,” to get his advice. That’s what he told us. As a creator, you have to have the vision for the show, but you have to be open to these ideas and funnel them through.

Is it fair to say you took some of it into consideration because there was less of an emphasis on a love triangle, at least with Wednesday? We really see things build in the friendship between Enid and Wednesday.

Gough: The thing is, if your first boyfriend turns out to be a monster, there was never going to be like, “Oh, I can’t wait to dive back into a romance” idea. The show’s been in our head for six years; it was always like, Season 2 was once bitten, twice shy, especially if you’re Wednesday Addams — or once bitten, twice stabbed. That felt like the natural evolution. Again, she’s not a character who was, even Season 1 [boy crazy] and it worked great. People were invested and intrigued and wanted to know. I can tell you from having daughters — because most times it’s portrayed as the girls are loving for the boys. That’s not true in every situation. With my two daughters, it’s the boys who’ve been way more interested in the girls, and then they eventually come around or think, maybe I’ll do it. If you look at Season 1, Xavier and Tyler were way more interested in Wednesday. Wednesday had no interest and any time she even delved into what you would see as romance — she went to the dance because she thought he was a suspect. Wednesday never does anything because she goes with the flow. She’s either backed into a corner or it’s going to help her in her larger case. Even in that love triangle, we never betrayed Wednesday. She was never starry-eyed for either boy.

Millar: That love triangle worked, actually, very well. It’s the dramatic backbone of the season and leads Wednesday — because I think Wednesday, as we like to say, is often wrong; she is someone who just is very headstrong, and I think that’s what makes her so intriguing, that she’s complex and flawed. That’s an interesting thing for teenage female protagonist, who often aren’t that. It’s the journey of a teen; with Season 2, we can change it, and Jenna was in an agreement with that. It’s been a very successful partnership in terms of the steering the course of the character, and where she goes and how she behaves and what she says.

What were you interested in exploring between the Enid-Wednesday dynamic in Season 2? And how did you arrive at the body-swapping idea?

Gough: The end of Season 1, Wednesday made a friend, but then it’s like, OK, how do you be a friend? That’s something that she is still very Wednesday [about] and she still has her preconceived notions of Enid, which is, “I can’t tell her the secret, I have to save her. I can’t include her — she’s weak, she’ll lose her mind.” She doesn’t think that Enid can handle it, so she doesn’t really see her friend. With Enid, it’s even the case with Ajax, and moving on to Bruno, which is Ajax saw her one way, and she’s not that girl anymore.

The body-swap episode was a way to explore that so that they could see [what it’s like] literally walking a mile in somebody else’s shoes — in this case, their bodies — and seeing what it is that they appreciate about each other. It’s an idea that’s sitting there — they’re so polar opposites and they’re both such good actors that they’ve created characters with such specific quirks and body movement and cadences and things like that. To then put the one in the other, it just felt like, why wouldn’t we do that?

Millar: We’ve had moments of real darkness this season; we just need to have an episode where the audience is going to have the best time and it be a great ride. I remember we were on set and it was the moment where Enid wakes up in [Wednesday’s] body and starts screaming. Jenna can scream nonstop. She was screaming all day, but it was so incredible to hear. You didn’t know who it was really. It was complete transformation. It was definitely a challenge. It was more than halfway through the season, they were tired and it was a real testament to their resilience and professionalism that they really just went for it.

Gough: They would record each other doing the line so that they could hear. They studied like two A students. They really put everything into it.

You brought the Addams family further into the fold this season, particularly giving attention the mother-daughter dynamic between Morticia and Wednesday — their parallels, their tension.

Gough: The show‘s a comedy, it’s a satire, but it always comes down to [being] a family drama. Season 1 even went back Wednesday’s ancestor, Goody vs. Crackstone; then it was Gomez and Morticia vs. the Gates family. It all comes down to family secrets in this show. We wanted to expand that. The feedback we also got was people love the Addams Family and they’re intrigued by them because there’s no real mythology for the Addams Family. They didn’t have names until the TV show in the ’60s. Then you got a couple movies in the ’90s. People love them, but you don’t know much about them. For us, it’s great because it’s the opposite of “Smallville.” It is a clean slate where you can build the family tree. And we do it with the blessing of Kevin Miserocchi, who runs the Addams Foundation.

You got a taste of it in Season 1, with Morticia and Wednesday, and then you saw it in the Parents’ Weekend episode. But then the idea of Morticia is here, and what does that do? And the idea of this mother-daughter relationship, which especially in the teenage years, can be very fraught. They’re a lot more alike than they want to admit, on both ends. To take that very universal idea and relationship that a lot of people have experienced, but put it through the prism of the Addams Family with Morticia and Wednesday, and they solve their fights with swords and there’s more life-and-death sort of circumstances — that felt like a fun way to do it and a way to open up the show.

Millar: We really wanted to give Jenna some relief as well; she was in every scene of Season 1. It was a creative opportunity for us to explore different characters and to really expand the world of the show.

I loved getting an origin story for Thing.

Millar: The first thing you see of Slurp is this gloved hand coming out of the ground. We thought, “Oh, everyone’s going to know immediately; it’ll be the worst kept secret in Hollywood.” It’s been really gratifying because that’s such a great twist, if we could pull it off — it’s right in front of your face the whole time.

We talked about [whether Thing] should be attached to someone who is so evil. Obviously, he’s flawed. He’s often doing things for the right reasons; they’re sort of deranged reasons. But Isaac Night [Owen Painter] is a flawed character, but he’s also the noble genius as well. That was a debate. We had some other options we explored and went down the road with, but ultimately we thought it was this idea of transformation of seeing a zombie who then becomes human and the comic foil of Pugsley [Isaac Ordonez] choosing him like a pet dog, and then he starts eating brains — it just sounds so insane, but actually it make sense in the show.

Now I want to know the path you didn’t take with him.

Millar: We had a whole backstory for him, which is he was in a circus and he fell in love with a circus performer. It was a very much more sweet story, rather than this one, which is much more macabre, sort of inspired by Frankenstein, zombie movies.

What can you tease about Season 3? Will there be more Lady Gaga? Things ends with Enid being seemingly trapped in wolf mode and there’s Wednesday’s psychic vision of Ophelia, Morticia’s sister.

Millar: We’re in the middle of [writing] Season 3 now. Our lips are sealed. We can’t say anything, but obviously the end of Season 2 does set up that Ophelia will be coming to feature in Season 3. We’ll say that much.

By this time next year, will we have a Season 3?

Gough: I can’t say anything to that.