Netflix is currently filming Wednesday season 3 in Europe, and the production has already announced several new cast members, including Ryder, Eva Green, Chris Sarandon, Noah Taylor, Oscar Morgan, Kennedy Moyer, Lena Headey, Andrew McCarthy, and James Lance.
During an interview with Backstage, John Papsidera, the casting director for several shows and movies, including Landman, Fallout, and The Odyssey, explained what it’s like casting actors for Wednesday, especially for the upcoming season. He teased that “there are some big storylines that are fantastic” and admitted it was a “fun” experience to film in Paris, France, and have the titular character “explore another world.”
“There are some big storylines that are fantastic in season 3. The fact that we went to France is a real fun thing, and to have Wednesday explore another world. I am really excited about Winona, Noah and Lena Headey. That world just keeps growing in a different way. Fallout grows in a certain kind of anonymous way because the characters are front and center. Wednesday grows in this kind of population of delicious characters.”
As far as the casting is concerned, Wednesday season 3 will see several new cast members joining the series. “The world just keeps growing in a different way,” Papsidera said, adding that he’s “really excited” about the additions of Ryder, Taylor and Headey because these “delicious characters” allow the show to expand and grow in new and interesting ways.
Wednesday already has major star power in actors like Jenna Ortega, Gwendoline Christie, Steve Buscemi, Luis Guzmán, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. So when casting new actors to star alongside them, there’s a balancing act that goes on behind the scenes to make sure they naturally blend in with the existing cast without overshadowing anybody.
At the end of the day, the casting director, in conjunction with showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and executive producer Tim Burton, must think about “servicing the story and servicing the needs of Netflix” above anything else.
Papsidera claimed that it’s difficult to “outshine what we’ve already established” with the likes of Ortega and Zeta-Jones, so he and the rest of the team haven’t felt any major concerns about bringing someone like Ryder into the fold. What these new cast members do bring to the table, though, are “individualistic characters that get to play off of one another.”
“It’s about knowing Tim’s taste and the kind of actors he responds to. It’s also about servicing the story and servicing the needs of Netflix. It’s a little bit of an advantage that Jenna and Catherine are such stars, that we have a huge canvas to work with in Wednesday. I don’t think that we can outshine what we’ve already established. So there were no real concerns when we get to bring in Noah Taylor to the world, or Winona, or any of the people that are [in] season 3. It just gets a little bit more delicious that there’s all these individualistic characters that get to play off of one another.”
The series, based on the long-running Addams Family franchise, debuted in 2022 and centers on the mysterious and dangerous adventures of Wednesday Addams as she attends Nevermore Academy. Other cast members include Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Georgie Farmer, Isaac Ordonez, Owen Painter, Billie Piper, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, Victor Dorobantu, Evie Templeton, and Joanna Lumley.
Across its first two seasons, Wednesday has been a hit for Netflix, receiving mostly positive reviews from critics with an 80% score on Rotten Tomatoes and earning multiple Emmy awards and nominations.
Ryder’s addition to the cast of Wednesday comes just six months after her previous Netflix series, the pop culture phenomenon Stranger Things, came to an end after five seasons. Before that, Ryder was known for her roles in movies like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Little Women, The Age of Innocence, The Crucible, and Alien Resurrection.
Now Ryder has a new TV role on the horizon as part of the cast of Wednesday season 3. Since filming is still ongoing, a release date is unknown at this point, but the series will likely return in 2027.