Although Wednesday on Netflix focuses on the titular character and the other students of Nevermore Academy, that doesn’t mean the adult characters get left in the dust. Especially when you have iconic actors like Luis Guzmán, Fred Armisen, and Steve Buscemi inhabiting these characters. Ahead of season two of Wednesday, we got to chat with these three gentlemen about getting to inhabit such iconic “creepy and kooky” Addams Family roles for a new generation. (There are some mild spoilers in this interview.)
Nerdist: The Addams Family has been around for generations now. They’ve been comics, TV shows, movies, and animated. Do each of you have a favorite iteration of the franchise before coming on board Wednesday?
Luis Guzmán: Yeah, I love the black and white (1960s era TV) version. I remember as a kid running home from school just to catch it. And I always thought “Man, I want to be part of that family.” Because it was different. It was beautiful to be different, and wacky, and weird, and crazy. It was just a beautiful, different kind of “normal” to look at.
Steve Buscemi: Yeah, for me, the TV show is what I grew up on. I didn’t know that the TV show at the time was based on the Charles Addams drawings and comics. So yeah, the TV show was my first exposure to it, and I loved it. You just always waited for that to come on.
Fred Armisen: Yeah, same here. Even though we’ve loved every version, the movies and everything, that’s the one I’m most familiar with, earliest on, but I wish I could also, this is not my official answer, but I wish I could say it was the original cartoons in the early 1900s!
Fester gets to be a little bit of a ladies’ man this season, in his unusual Fester way. Were you excited when you saw that new development for the character?
Fred Armisen: Yes, and especially because of the way that they wrote it, so it wasn’t just simple. It was just that Fester really just enjoys life, and he meets someone else who also enjoys life, and they really put together some good lines for it.
A lot of the adults who are coming onto this season are legacy characters, but Steve, your character, Headmaster Barry Dort, is new. But adults in Wednesday tend to have interesting backstories. Did they give you all of your backstory when you signed on?
Steve Buscemi: Not all of it, and in fact, I didn’t find out his real backstory until much, much later. But that was a really nice surprise, what happens later on down the road. But they gave me enough information that I knew what this guy was about and what he was trying to do, and I think it’s no surprise that he’s a bit nefarious. It doesn’t all add up with what he seems to be and what he really is.
The Addams adults get more to do this season than last. Were you all excited about being a bigger part of the plot this year?
Fred Armisen: I don’t take anything for granted, so it was very definitely a nice surprise. I mean, it would’ve been good either way. That’s how much I love the show. But it was nice. It was great to see these new avenues come up.
Luis Guzmán: And also to be more involved in our kids’ lives, and to actually, as a parent, as Gomez, to be sleeping in my old alma mater of Nevermore. Loved that.
Luis, we get a tango moment, which is a nice callback to the movies, I think. What did you think when they approached you with You get to do a Tango with Catherine Zeta Jones?
I said, let’s go, I want to learn. I think I rehearsed that for two months, because I love to dance, but Tango is a whole different beast. It’s a whole different side of your brain, and it’s like the steps are opposite. So you kind of have to try to get your body to understand that in the movement, and man, it was just a beautiful thing to do and to be a part of. Because of this, I have grown to love Tango so much.
Are we going to get some Fester and Gomez moments together? Because I don’t feel like we’ve had a whole lot of that yet.
Luis Guzman: They might be scheming something, but I don’t know yet.
Fred Armisen: It would make sense in that they’re brothers, so we certainly hope so.
I know this is a question people ask all the time, but you guys have really cool costumes and props on this show. Did you guys get to keep any of ’em?
Luis Guzmán: I can’t say. I’m not allowed to say.
Steve Busemi: Because he stole his props!
Luis Guzmán: Shhh….I might be wearing my Gomez socks. Don’t tell nobody.
Wednesday season two part one starts streaming on Netflix on August 6.
Content shared from nerdist.com.