What was it like to see the success of Season 1, which became a global phenomenon? Why did the show resonate with so many people?
Gough: The global phenomenon of Wednesday was incredible.
Millar: And very surprising.
Gough: People are like, “Were you expecting that?” Nobody’s expecting that. And we’re very grateful. It is a show that has appealed to everyone from age 8 to 80. We’ve seen both parents and children like it — and there have been a lot of families watching the show together, which is amazing. Everybody feels like Wednesday. Everybody feels like an outcast. She speaks her mind, she’s unapologetically smart, and she’s analog — which I also think is wish fulfillment in this high tech age — and she also makes mistakes but recovers and keeps moving on.
Millar: Going into Season 2, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t disappoint. We felt a responsibility to ensure that this season is as good as Season 1, if not better. Our aim was always to elevate it in terms of the storylines and character arcs — but also the look, feel, and scope of the show. The ambition is really high for this season. The surprising thing about the show and about the character of Wednesday is how universal she is, how global she is. We always knew in America that the Addams family were very popular characters, but the fact that they have been such a global hit took us by surprise. The universal idea of being an outsider, of being an outcast and feeling that you don’t belong, feels like something that is both global and multigenerational. Everyone feels that way; everyone sees themselves in Wednesday.
What differentiates this season from last season?
Millar: We have a bigger scope. We had the confidence going in now knowing that people like the show. We could explore more, and be more daring in terms of the storylines and the character arcs. The toy box got bigger, and we had the freedom to really do the show we always wanted to do.
Gough: Season 1 really focused on Wednesday, but you met the other characters, and now we got to expand their storylines and expand the scope of the show and the breadth of the show.
Without spoilers, what will audiences be excited to see Wednesday face in Season 2?
Millar: Wednesday goes into this season thinking she knows Nevermore. It’s the first time she’s returned to a school willingly — she usually just tries to get out of going back to school. But as soon as she returns, nothing happens the way she’s expecting. She thinks she’s going to be in control, that she knows where all the bodies are buried, but she doesn’t. Nothing is what it seems in Season 2.
Gough: Wednesday deals with the fact that back at Nevermore, she’s suddenly incredibly popular, which drives her insane. And now she’s dealing with the ever-shifting social and emotional parts of school that she’s always avoided, because she’s a young woman who sees the world in black-and-white.
Where have you found creative inspiration for your work across Season 2?
Gough: With both seasons, we do look for inspiration in classic horror. And this season, it’s definitely Frankenstein and also movies like Shock Corridor and Girl, Interrupted, and even a little One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Those were the classic inspirations behind our process laying out Season 2.
Throughout the first season we watched Wednesday come into her own and figure out relationships, which is a new journey for her. In that respect, how are you excited to see her character grow in Season 2?
Millar: Whenever we look at Wednesday’s character, she always moves in very incremental stages. There’s no huge character arc for Wednesday in terms of her emotions. Staying true to her character is always very important to us. That said, she definitely has to navigate a lot of relationships in Season 2, primarily with her mother and with Enid. She discovers that those relationships are treacherous and it’s not easygoing. It’s always important for characters to have challenges in terms of those relationships, and that’s what audiences really gravitate toward. The emotional heart of the show are those relationships. We really wanted to find some new obstacles for Wednesday, she thinks she has it all under control and discovers that human interaction isn’t as easy as she thought.
Gough: Wednesday doesn’t realize that everybody else changes too, and they come back to school with new goals and are in a different place in their lives as well. For her, it’s the balance of when she was at home, she could just deal with the family. Last year at Nevermore, she just had to deal with her friends. Now both collide, so she’s dealing with her family and her friends and competing agendas and more eyes on her, which she hates.
We see quite a bit more of our favorite Addams family characters in Season 2. What intrigued you about expanding their presence?
Gough: One of the things we learned in Season 1 is how much people love the Addams family, and there really isn’t a lot of Addams family lore that exists. We love having the open playing field of creating the Addams family myth and delving deeper, so we wanted to bring them to Nevermore. This year, they’re brought here because Morticia is the chairperson of the gala committee. The new principal asks her to do that, and they’re living right off campus. Also, Pugsley’s come as a student, so now Wednesday has to deal with her younger brother being here. And as Miles said, there’s a lot of family secrets that start to get uncovered.
Millar: Bringing the family to Nevermore felt like an obvious move in terms of another thorn in Wednesday’s side — more conflict for that character. And the mother-daughter relationship between Wednesday and Morticia is really the central relationship this season. We both have teenage daughters so seeing the mother-daughter relationship is something that we’re very familiar with, and the dynamic of teenage girls and their mothers is fantastic drama. For us as writers, it’s a very fertile plain, so that was something we were very excited to explore. Bringing the whole family to Nevermore felt like a no-brainer.
Speaking of mothers and daughters, we also get to meet Grandmama (Joanna Lumley) and see a different mother-daughter dynamic between her and Morticia. Tell us about that character and the fun of seeing the three generations of Addams women.
Gough: We wanted to introduce Grandmama this season to see a different mother-daughter relationship. We see Hester and Morticia’s relationship, and how there are similarities and differences between Morticia and Wednesday’s relationship. And of course, Wednesday and Hester get along great. Other than Fester, Grandmama is probably Wednesday’s favorite person and the one she feels the most kinship with. It’s also somebody she can use against her mother. So it’s a delicious family triangle to set up.
Can you talk about Wednesday’s psychic visions this season, how they’ve changed, and why that’s maybe a little concerning to Morticia?
Millar: This season, Wednesday’s psychic visions change. She has spent her summer vacation mastering her psychic ability, but then something goes wrong, so she returns to Nevermore with her psychic ability glitching. Over the course of the season, it’s a struggle to recover her power. We loved the idea of giving Wednesday a weakness. This is something that she thought she had mastered, but she’s discovered she hasn’t. It’s always good for us to have moments showing Wednesday’s flaws –– how does someone who is incredibly strong and strong-willed cope when something’s taken away from them? For Wednesday, it’s very difficult. It becomes her goal over the course of the season to recover her ability, and it brings her right into Morticia’s orbit. Morticia is desperately trying to help Wednesday recover her power, but Wednesday is resisting. We are always building conflict and putting the mother-daughter relationship front and center in the episodes.
Gough: Wednesday’s biggest Achilles heel is certainty. She’s always very certain that she knows what’s right. And a lot of the time, that is not the case.
Millar: The psychic ability is fantastic for storytelling because you can see things in the future and it helps with clues on the mystery trail. But also sometimes it’s too easy and you never want a character to have things that are too easy. So it actually helped make the mystery story this season more complicated, that it wasn’t as easy for Wednesday as it was in Season 1.
We have a new principal at Nevermore this year. Who is Principal Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), and how has he changed the spirit of the school?
Millar: Principal Barry Dort arrives at Nevermore to take the place of the late great Larissa Weems, who was murdered at the end of the first season. We loved the idea of finding someone completely the opposite of Weems. Steve Buscemi is an amazing actor, and plays a principal who is incredibly into Nevermore. He wears purple, he wears branded baseball caps, he’s basically Mr. Nevermore — the opposite of Weems, who’s so put together and chic. Over the course of the season, he is desperate for Wednesday’s approval and he considers her to be the ultimate Nevermore student; she defended the school and was the savior of Nevermore last year. Of course, Wednesday hates Dort and hates any sort of attention. It puts them at odds immediately.
Gough: The other thing that Principal Dort brings to the school is the idea of outcast pride. Weems was all about the Normies and outcasts trying to work together. There was Outreach Day and she brought in Professor Thornhill (Christina Ricci), who was a Normie teacher. Dort has used all of that against her. He besmirches her legacy and says outcasts have to have pride. It’s all about, “We do it for ourselves.” That’s an interesting energy to bring to the school.
Principal Dort has another objective this year, which is to raise funds. Who does he recruit to that cause, and which donor is of particular interest to him?
Gough: After the events of the first season, Nevermore is in dire financial straits. One of Dort’s main drives is to raise money for the school and he sees Morticia Addams as the perfect outcast and parent to chair the gala committee. That’s why the Addams family are at the school this year. Not only does it pair Morticia with Wednesday more directly, but it also allows Morticia to be at the school. She also develops a relationship with Bianca (Joy Sunday), who is the student chair of the committee. It’s another way to really expand Morticia’s role, which has been great.
Millar: One of the reasons you discover that Dort may have recruited Morticia is that Nevermore’s richest alumna is actually Hester Frump, Morticia’s mother. Hester has made a fortune with her funeral home empire. The idea that Morticia could sweet-talk her mother into giving money to Nevermore is Dort’s motivation. But as he finds out, nothing is easy with the Addams clan.
Now that Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) has joined Wednesday at Nevermore, what is it like for Wednesday to have her little brother around? What can viewers expect from that storyline?
Gough: Pugsley Addams is now a student at Nevermore, and Wednesday isn’t feeling great about that. I don’t think anybody really wants their little brother with them at school. Pugsley is somebody who’s always struggled to make and have friends. He didn’t have any friends in Normie school and that’s what he really wants. His father has assured him that these are his people. But when he gets to Nevermore, he doesn’t make friends easily. He’s trying very hard. He’s socially awkward. He’s also rooming with Eugene (Moosa Mostafa), who’s cool now because he helped save the school. Then, of course, in a typical Addams scenario, Pugsley finds a friend by ultimately raising a zombie.
Where do we find Tyler (Hunter Doohan) after last season’s cliff-hanger?
Gough: Well, we meet Tyler Galpin again. As you recall, he’s a Hyde. He was captured at the end of the first season, and we last saw him in the back of an armored vehicle heading to Willow Hill Psychiatric Facility. That is where we meet him in the second episode, where he has been incarcerated and is being studied. Wednesday needs to go to him for a clue in her mystery. You see that the facade of the nice boy, which dropped at the end of last year, is completely gone now. He’s a complete monster, not only physically but psychologically as well.
Millar: There might be a glimmer of something. For Wednesday, it’s always the question of why she was attracted to him. Is it this idea that she could only fall in love with a monster? Was there something about the darkness in him that she saw and liked? There is no love triangle this season, but that relationship is the closest she’s going to get to love. It’s a fascinating push-pull between her emotions. It really unnerves her, being with him. They both play mind games and it’s really fun to see them tap dance around each other. Willow Hill, the psychiatric hospital, is a big environment for us this season, and that plays into the mystery that Wednesday uncovers.
Thing (Victor Dorobantu) was a fan favorite in Season 1. What is he up to in Season 2?
Millar: Thing is a huge part of the show and one of the characters that we discovered the audience loved the most in Season 1. People just fell in love with Thing. We have this incredible Romanian actor, Victor Dorobantu, who plays Thing, and he, over the course of the three years we’ve been making the show, has become so dexterous and adds so much personality to his performance. When you watch Thing on-screen, there is such humanity to what happens and the communication he uses. It’s so simple, but it’s not. Victor can do so much with so little. We really loved the idea of exploring more of Thing and his story. Is Thing beginning to question where he’s from? Where’s the rest of his body? Over the course of the season, we have some really great moments of discovery for Thing.
What do you love about what Jenna has done with the character Wednesday Addams this season?
Gough: Jenna Ortega is an amazing actor. She’s so locked and loaded into Wednesday’s character. She hadn’t done it for probably two years, but came back in, and on the first day, was completely Wednesday again, which is amazing.
Millar: She brings such incredible intelligence, humor, and instinct to the role. I think something that is always true for us is that Wednesday can be a confounding character. She never reacts to situations in an expected way. Wednesday always keeps us honest. It’s just been great to see the evolution of the character and her performance, which appears effortless but really isn’t. There’s so much thought and care and intelligence going into every line.
Can you talk about Catherine Zeta-Jones’ performance as Morticia Addams?
Gough: Catherine Zeta-Jones is the most fun person on a set, and she loves playing Morticia. She’s a mother, so she does bring that lived element to Morticia, which is great. She really relished this season, having more scenes not only with Jenna but also with Joanna Lumley, who plays her on-screen mother Hester Frump, and with Steve Buscemi, who plays Principal Dort. Morticia really comes into her own this season and you get to see a lot of different sides to her, and Catherine does it beautifully.
Millar: It was very important to us to make sure that all the characters felt dimensional. The movies in the ’90s were great, but they weren’t looking at emotional depth. So finding complexity and emotional reality for the characters is something we’ve really strived to do. Catherine always brings so much to her scenes. We have many scenes this season with Wednesday, Hester, and Morticia, and it’s amazing to see the multigenerational Addams family women and how they interact. That’s been really, really fun to write, and they’ve had a blast playing those roles. And we also get to see Morticia dance, sing and sword fight.
What impresses you about Luis Guzmán’s performance as Gomez?
Gough: Luis is just a lovely person and he really brings a warmth to Gomez and a sense of family. He’s also really wonderful with Isaac Ordonez, who plays Pugsley. Luis took Isaac under his wing, because now he’s a series regular. You see the father-son story and how that evolves over Season 2.
Millar: Luis is such a great, warm personality on the set, and yes, he really did take Isaac under his wing. Isaac has grown a lot since the first season — he’s shot up — but it’s an intimidating thing to go from a guest star to a season regular. Luis was so great to have in every scene, and particularly in those scenes with Isaac.
Gough: He had scenes with Wednesday this year without Morticia, just Wednesday and Gomez. And we see the father-daughter relationship and reveal he’s not always a pushover — he knows what’s going on.
Let’s talk about Grandmama Hester Frump, played by Joanna Lumley.
Millar: The idea of bringing Hester, Morticia’s mother, into the fold was something we were so excited about. In the first season we introduced Fester, and then this season we thought, “Let’s introduce Grandmama.” At the top of our list was Joanna Lumley. Joanna just inhabited this role. And the hair and makeup — she has this extraordinary wig. Colleen Atwood, our incredible costume designer, designed these amazing costumes. The first day on set when Joanna walked on, she just was Hester, and she nailed every single line, and it’s just so delicious. The Wednesday-Hester relationship is unique and different; you see a twinkle in both their eyes when they’re together on-screen. I think everyone is going to fall in love with Hester.
Uncle Fester, played by Fred Armisen, is also back as Fester Addams. What do you love about his performance?
Gough: Fred is the loveliest person, and he loves playing this role and he brings so much humor to it. This year, he’s in a couple of episodes, and we were able to expand his role because it was so much fun to have Fester in the show and you just got a taste of it in Season 1.
Millar: We loved having him on set and he has the best time playing this role. You just see the potential for that character, so it was really exciting to see more of him this season.
How did you approach the creative partnership with Tim Burton?
Gough: We have worked with Tim for nearly five years between the first season of Wednesday and then on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. So we have a real shorthand with him, which is great. But the challenge was, “How do we top Season 1?” There’s more story, more characters, more scope, and we really embraced that.
Millar: It’s something that Tim was very conscious of as well. Tim had never done television before the last season, so the idea of coming back was like, “OK. How does this work?” We were just very focused on not being complacent and making sure that the ambition of the show was limitless. We let our imaginations fly so that we could create something that was really special. It was very important to us, and to Tim as well, that we were never resting on our laurels. We wanted the show and the second season to be really ambitious. That was what we set out to achieve: “There are no compromises. It has to be great.”
What specific elements of world-building across the show — costume design or production design — have been changed or elevated this season?
Millar: The scope of Season 2 was expanded. In terms of costume design, even the school uniforms are more detailed and elevated. There are subtle differences in everybody’s costumes. In terms of the set design, we’ve built a lot more of Nevermore. We found that audiences really wanted to see more of the school. They wanted to know how it’s all connected. So we built this enormous courtyard called the Link in the middle of the coldest field in Ireland. The idea of building sets gives the show something that’s very tactile and makes everything feel very authentic. It is important that the show and the world of Nevermore feel real.
Gough: Also, we go to different locations. Willow Hill, which is the psychiatric facility where Tyler is kept, plays a very big part in the season. That world feels gothic and spooky, but different from Nevermore.
Millar: Even at the school, we get to see more. The Nevermore graveyard, Iago Clock Tower, secret passages, just make the world feel real. And then we found this great castle two hours outside Dublin where we do some of our interiors. That also gave it a tactile feel, that you could connect our exterior set to a real place. The actors could walk down these grand stairs and actually walk out into our set. It’s all movie magic, but that makes it feel authentic. That’s something that audiences love. There’s a wish fulfillment about Nevermore. They wish they could go to a school like this.
Can you take us behind the scenes of creating the clockwork heart stop-motion sequence in the first episode of Season 2? It seems so cool, so Tim Burton-esque, weaving that story and that style of storytelling into the season.
Millar: Tim Burton directed the first episode, and this piece is very in line with his legacy regarding stop-motion. The idea of incorporating that into the show felt very natural and organic. It’s a beautiful sequence. It took two-and-a-half months to shoot, and I went to the studio in the UK and saw the amazing sets and the incredible detail. It’s so time-consuming to actually do old-fashioned stop-motion photography. You see the love in every frame, and it’s something that Tim actually took a lot of care and interest in as well.
Gough: It’s also, to be honest, a very fun way to reveal backstory. It’s just an interesting way that feels completely unique to our world.
There is a new mystery tied in with Wednesday’s vision starting in Episode 1. How does that storyline inform Wednesday’s journey this season?
Gough: A big part of the show is the mystery. The season is not an eight-episode whodunit, but it’s still a mystery. The last vision Wednesday sees before her physic ability glitches is Enid’s death. And suddenly she thinks, “Oh my gosh, my best friend’s going to die. How do I solve that?” That vision really gives Wednesday great narrative drive.
Millar: Wednesday feels that Enid, who she’s come to regard as a friend, is in jeopardy because of her. It is very personal and becomes the quest of the season: Wednesday must stop Enid’s death. That is what drives Wednesday through the season. It’s reflective of that idea of Wednesday and Enid are the heart of the show. The theme of female friendship and sisterhood is key to the story and puts Wednesday and Enid front and center.
Gough: It also drives a wedge between them because, of course, Wednesday doesn’t tell Enid about this vision. Wednesday wants to solve this all by herself because ultimately she doesn’t think Enid’s up to the task. So it’s another test of their friendship: You have to bring people into your life, not exclude them.
Millar: And also respect them. Wednesday’s still learning to navigate human relationships. You have to be open and you have to take someone with their flaws and also recognize their strengths. That’s something that Wednesday doesn’t necessarily do with Enid. She starts out seeing her in one way, which is as a fragile victim, and that’s not who she is.
Can you walk us through the creative decision to split the season? How did you decide to leave everybody on a big cliff-hanger at the end of Episode 4?
Gough: When we approached the season, we didn’t want to repeat ourselves. We loved the mystery — the season-long, “Who was the monster who’s behind everything?” — but we didn’t want to do that again in Season 2. We liked the idea of dividing the season into two chapters.
Millar: We felt that if we’re going to split it in terms of the way that the viewers will watch it, then the end of the fourth episode needs to be something amazing; a cliff-hanger to bring them back for the next chapter. That was an exciting challenge.
Gough: And it took us back to our broadcast days. We used to do that. It’s absolutely the same thing, and that was exciting. At the end of Episode 4, Wednesday literally lets the lunatics out of the asylum, and the rest of the season is: Now you have to deal with that. And she almost dies in the process.
Millar: The recklessness and arrogance of Wednesday’s actions land her in hospital, and Tyler’s out; everyone’s out.
Gough: She solved one mystery and then unleashed a Pandora’s box of new problems.
Tyler and Wednesday have faced off again and the fight leaves Wednesday in pretty bad shape. Is she going to be OK in the second half of the season?
Millar: We talked about it a lot in terms of when you see Wednesday fly out of the hospital window and land. I remember standing outside the location looking at the window, saying, “That’s really, really high.” Any normal human would be in traction for the next six years. But if you look at the back of her head in Episode 5, she has a bunch of staples. And it was actually a very complex prosthetic done by Nirvana Jalalvand, Jenna Ortega’s personal hairstylist and makeup artist. It’s really unnerving to look at these staples in the back of her head. Episode 6, they’re gone. But Episode 5, she comes back and she does have scratches. No broken bones.
Is Marilyn Thornhill truly dead?
Gough: Marilyn Thornhill is dead dead.
Millar: Although I will say in this show, no one is officially dead dead. There’s always a way.
She’s dead dead until it’s really cool to bring her back.
Millar: Exactly. Christina is just an amazing person and actor, and she brings such value to the show, and the character’s so wonderful. Never say never.
Walk us through the decision to have Tyler kill off his former master.
Gough: Getting more into the Hyde mythology, when you kill off your master, a Hyde will eventually go crazy. The idea is that Thornhill puts him in this position, and he kills her off in a fit of rage. What’s going to happen once he’s out without a master? That just seemed like a very interesting place, narratively. You have a deranged monster who’s slowly losing his mind.
With the LOIS program revelation, we also find out that Dr. Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton) is not the Avian who’s been controlling the one-eyed crows. It’s actually Judi (Heather Matarazzo). Not only is she an Avian, she is Dr. Augustus Stonehearst’s daughter. Walk us through crafting that twist and what it will mean going forward.
Millar: One of the challenges of the show is constructing a compelling mystery. We love the idea of leading the audience down the path and thinking that Dr. Fairburn is the bad guy. And then revealing that, actually, the hooded figure is Judi, the ditzy assistant. For us, it’s always about: “How do you subvert the expectation, red herrings, and tropes of a murder mystery?” I love the idea that Judi was connected to Stonehearst, and actually Stonehearst is connected to Nevermore, so it all leads back to Nevermore and the secrets that the school holds.
Gough: Tim calls it the “everybody’s a suspect” approach.
What will this mean going into the second half of the season?
Gough: The mysteries of Willow Hill definitely carry over into the second half of the season. It all comes out.
It’s becoming clear that with every brain that Slurp (Owen Painter) eats, he’s becoming more and more human. He’s regenerating. What can we expect from Slurp in the second half of the season?
Millar: In the second half of the season, Slurp really comes into his own. We’ve seen him beginning to humanize as he starts to eat brains in the first four episodes. Then he has agency in the last four episodes. We love the idea of seeing this metamorphosis. This seemingly harmless zombie who was Pugsley’s wannabe pet — has his own agenda. As he becomes more human, we have a lot of fun with what the audience will think he’s up to.
We have just met Grandmama (Joanna Lumley) in the first half of the season and further delved into the dynamics of the Addams clan. What can we expect from that element of the storytelling in the second half of the season?
Gough: You will definitely see more of Grandmama as she is the richest alumna at Nevermore and Dort’s target for a large donation. We also reveal her relationship dynamics, not only with Morticia, but about how she feels about Gomez. And it allows Wednesday to see her grandmother in a new light that isn’t frankly that flattering. Wednesday learns more about her family history and how these relationships came to evolve.
How will you see the dynamic between Wednesday, Enid, and Agnes (Evie Templeton) continue to develop in the second half of the season?
Millar: One of the highlights of Season 2 has been the relationship between Agnes, Enid, and Wednesday. We felt it was important to challenge Wednesday and Enid’s relationship. How does Wednesday navigate the idea of friendship? We put Agnes in the middle of it –– she’s this Wednesday superfan, and someone who believes she is a natural best friend for Wednesday. Agnes does something very extreme in Episode 2 and almost kills Enid. How does Enid reconcile that near-death experience with this growing friendship she sees between Wednesday and Agnes? And for Agnes, it’s also about coming into her own, and realizing that she’s living too vicariously through Wednesday. Agnes has one of the most significant character arcs of the season. We wanted her to learn something from Wednesday. We spent some time with Jenna talking about this. What’s Wednesday’s point of view about Agnes? Does she like her? Is she just using her? All these elements reflect different aspects of friendship. That was something that was satisfying to explore.
Courtesy: Netflix
