Christina Ricci portrays Wednesday Addams in two of the most popular Addams Family outings, but now, the actress is ready to hand over the iconic character to the next generation. Wednesday Addams is probably the most popular character in the Addams Family canon. Sometimes depicted as the older Addams child, and sometimes depicted as the younger one, Wednesday is named after the nursery rhyme, “Monday’s Child”, which includes a line, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe“, and that’s a fairly apt description of the character.

While Wednesday’s personality changes slightly from appearance to appearance, it can be generally said that she’s a morbid and emotionally reserved child, to put it lightly. By emotionally reserved, I mean she occasionally buries cats for the fun of it and plays with a doll of Marie Antoinette, whom she frequently guillotines. She can be sweet on occasion, and in most Addams Family movies and TV shows, she usually warms up to her family and friends by the end. Until Jenna Ortega came along, Christina Ricci was the classic Wednesday, but now the actress is ready to hand her off.

Christina Ricci Wants To Give Up “Ownership” Over Wednesday Addams

Ricci Says The Character Does Not Belong To Her

Christina Ricci played Wednesday Addams in 1991’s The Addams Family and the 1993 sequel, Addams Family Values. So when Netflix announced the streaming series, Wednesday, some fans hoped Ricci would at least get a nod. They got even more than they hoped when Ricci appeared as supporting character, Marilyn Thornihill, a botany teacher at Nevermore Academy. While it may have thrown some Addams Family faithful for a loop seeing Ricci not playing Wednesday, Ricci doesn’t think she owns the character (via THR),

“The last time I played this part, I was 12. I’m now 44 years old, so I don’t have a feeling of ownership over the character the way that I think some people might imagine. Wednesday’s been played by many different people over the years. I’m not comparing it to Shakespeare, but you know how lots of people have played Juliet? It’s like that.”

For Ricci, Wednesday is not the defining role of her career, nor is she the defining actress for Wednesday on-screen. Several actresses have portrayed Wednesday Addams over the years, Ricci’s performance just happened to come in two of the more acclaimed adaptations of Charles Addams’ The New Yorker cartoons. Fandoms often link actors with their characters, and when someone new comes along to play the character, the reception can be less than warm. By saying this, Ricci gracefully gave Ortega a boost in credibility.

Ricci’s Iconic Wednesday Performance Doesn’t Take Away From Other Actresses

Each Actress Has Brought Something Different To The Character

Christina Ricci’s performance of Wednesday Addams is even darker and more sadistic than the character had been previously portrayed. In her films, Wednesday is almost malevolent, nearly executing her baby brother with a guillotine and burning down Camp Chippewa. At the end of the film, she even scares a possible love interest, Joel (David Krumholtz), to death. This portrayal, which, as dark as it is, is still very funny and even charming in a way, helped mold black comedies of the 1990s and 2000s with The Cable Guy, Bad Santa, and even Little Miss Sunshine taking notes.

That’s the great thing about Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family: she is so comfortable in her skin that it’s hard not to root for her, even when she’s dumping live piranhas in a pool. Each actress who’s played her has offered up a different shade of the character while still making sure she retains her essential “Wednesday-ness”. Ortega, in particular, nailed the performance. Her Wednesday Addams is certainly a terror, but there’s enough humanity underneath that her growth feels honest and natural. Christina Ricci relinquishing Wednesday Addams is why someone like Ortega could feel so free with the character.