In Wednesday Season 2, Part 1, Heather Matarazzo (she/her/they/them) trades in her Princess Diaries tiara for something far more sinister. As Judi Spannagel — the overly chipper and sycophantic executive assistant at Willow Hill Psychiatric Facility — Matarazzo plays it sweet, greeting patients with a smile that hides a dark secret. Judi’s cheeriness quickly evaporates when she crosses paths with Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), for whom she develops an instant dislike, and now we know why.
By the end of Part 1, viewers learn the big bad isn’t the sharp-tongued Dr. Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton) after all — it’s her unsuspecting bubbly assistant, Judi. The twist reveals Judi is the Avian killer, the crow-controlling villain running the underground Longterm Outcast Integration Study (LOIS) program to abduct and experiment on outcasts.
Co-creators and showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough say crafting the reveal was all about subverting viewers’ expectations. “We love the idea of leading the audience down the path and thinking that Dr. Fairburn is the bad guy,” Millar tells Tudum. “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?”
In the Part 1 cliff-hanger, Judi is chased into the night by the outcasts she’s been keeping prisoner, and Wednesday’s fate is ominously uncertain. With Part 2 arriving Sept. 3, we caught up with the actor to discuss her journey to Nevermore and all the details of her character’s deliciously dark turn in Season 2.
Tell us the story of how you came into this role as Judi, a new character in Season 2 of Wednesday?
Heather Matarazzo: Well, they very graciously asked if I would be interested and I, of course, was very interested because I’ve been a huge fan of Mr. Tim Burton, as well as Al Gough and Miles Millar, for a long time. And I met with the casting team, and I guess they liked what they saw, so I got to have a beautiful experience in Dublin for seven months.
Were you a fan of the first season of Wednesday?
Matarazzo: I was a huge fan of the first season. And I know Jenna Ortega from Scream, where we got to first work together, and I make it a point to support my fellow artists that I absolutely love and adore. And as I said earlier, I’m a massive fan of Tim and Al and Miles, so when I heard that the first season was coming, I was very, very excited to watch it — and I was not disappointed at all.
Briefly tell us in your own words who Judi is and how she figures into the story of this season.
Matarazzo: I will say that she is colorful and unlike any character I’ve ever played, and I’m very, very excited for people to get to know her.
What specifically drew you to this role?
Matarazzo: I mean, and this is the truth, when Tim Burton asks you to participate in his world, I don’t care if I’m playing the wallpaper, I’m going to say yes. And Al and Miles did a wonderful job of creating the character of Judi, who had a lot of depth and quite a few surprises. And it’s always fun to play somebody that is unexpected.
You’re so beloved for roles in coming-of-age classics — The Princess Diaries, Saved, Welcome to the Dollhouse — and Wednesday approaches similar themes in its own way. What do you find compelling about those stories?
Matarazzo: I’ve always had an affinity for the underdog and for the misfit and for the outcast. I feel like there are so many more misfits and outcasts than most would assume. I think of Joseph Campbell and his brilliant work talking about the hero’s journey, and what better journey than somebody who is counted out and somebody that has to face insurmountable odds, whether it be via society, their family, or belief systems, to come out of the other side — and to paraphrase Carrie Fisher — “not just surviving, but sur-thriving.”
The outcasts are at the very heart of Wednesday. They’re almost the rule, not the exception, and it’s a whole school full of them and they’re very powerful.
Matarazzo: That is very, very true. And I think that that’s something that is real. What I’ve found is that, particularly with people that are fans of my work and fans of Welcome to the Dollhouse or fans of Lilly from The Princess Diaries, sometimes you just need permission to be yourself, and know that you’re not alone. That’s why there’s this tendency to want to hide oneself, because you don’t want to be ostracized anymore than you already have been. I think it was Mary Louise Parker, her character in Weeds, who talked about just letting your freak flag fly. I’m thankful that I get to be one of those flag flyers and get to give other people permission to do the same simply by just being.
Joining a series in its second season must be both exciting and intimidating. What was it like joining this world? How have the creative team and cast members welcomed you?
Matarazzo: I’ve been on both sides of the coin, where I’ve been a series regular on shows and we’ve had guest stars come on, and I’ve also been guest stars on other shows with series regulars. And I’m thankful that I’ve had a long line of fellow actors and professionals who taught me how to show up and to treat everyone with grace and kindness. And Wednesday was no exception. I knew Jenna, but everyone from Al and Miles and Tim, down through the whole cast, the whole lot of them were very warm and very welcoming and very open. I felt very safe to create and felt very supported in that space. Jenna being number one on the call sheet, and also being so young, there’s a lot of pressure that goes with that. In addition to also being a producer on the show, she exemplified an incredible amount of grace and professionalism that is very rare.
What has it been like working with Tim Burton on this project?
Matarazzo: He’s very exact. He knows exactly what he wants. And with that, too, he’s an actor’s director. That was the other beautiful thing about working on this show: Every director I worked with was an actor’s director. Tim knows who he wants, and he gets what he wants by who he hires. He trusts the actors that he’s hired to do their job. He is very clear about the technical aspects, which I appreciated. He might say, “I need you to be two centimeters to your left, and I need you to walk at this pace.” He’s a visionary in all aspects. There’s not a lot of muss or fuss. The biggest thrill for me is his unbridled enthusiasm. I’ve never seen somebody more filled with creative joy. Watching Tim work is like getting to watch a bird in flight that also happens to understand the ground very well.
The costuming in this series is amazing and always communicates something specific about the character. How did you, Colleen Atwood, and Mark Sutherland work together to craft Judi’s look?
Matarazzo: Colleen and Mark are so brilliant at what they do. And the first day I went in for a wardrobe fitting, they had a cascade of outfits, and we really got to talk through what the metamorphosis of Judi’s character was going to be — especially as we progress within the episodes. And the more she takes off the mask and we see who she truly is, how does that then change the wardrobe for the later episodes? How does she present on the outside, to the public, versus who she is when she’s at home alone? And how do those subtle changes work?
And they were very receptive and very on board, and we had a fabulous time collaborating. We are a small part of a much greater whole, and our job is to be in service to the story that is being told. And when you have people who work without ego, whose desire is to bring out the best in each character, it makes everyone’s job very easy. The only thing I would say is that luckily Dublin [where Season 2 filming took place] doesn’t get hit with a lot of heat waves. For a few days, I was wearing three layers of clothing, including heavy wool sweaters and turtlenecks, which proved to be a little uncomfortable. But what’s a wee bit of suffering for art?
Speaking of knitwear, we have to discuss the sweater in Episode 2. Tell us about that piece.
Matarazzo: That is our introduction to the public-facing Judi, and it’s almost camp, but not quite. It speaks so clearly to her saccharine image. And our hair designer, Franceso Pegoretti, did an incredible job. Right before I go film a project, I keep my hair at whatever length it is when I go; I don’t try to do anything beforehand because I want to be as much of a blank canvas as I possibly can be, and see what ideas unfold from that. And I also have a lot of thick hair.
We did a couple of looks, and we came to this realization that there’s a retro-ness to Judi that is actually a mask — because then once you see her at home in private, her hair is down. The mask is off. There’s a layer of defense with all that hair; she has such walls up, which is appropriate because she’s so incredibly calculating. Between hair and makeup and wardrobe, they really understood the assignment.
What was your reaction to the reveal that Judi is actually Dr. Stonehearst’s daughter and the Avian controlling all the crows?
Matarazzo: It tracked and it made sense, and I’m thankful that I knew that beforehand because my first day of filming was shooting the reveal. It was my first day on set. So I had to understand her motivations very quickly. Al and Miles were very generous in answering my questions within the space of what motivates a character to do something. What is it that she had within herself? What was the drive of that ambition? Was it the fact that she had a desperate need for her father’s approval and that she never felt that she really got it?
And so in her way, she wanted to surpass her father, but she also wanted to keep an eye on him. She didn’t kill him, she kept him in Willow Hill, within her space. She has a desire, I think, to soar and fly. But she has a tragic demise. Every character, I feel like, does have hidden motivations — unless of course you’re playing a sociopath or psycho, but even then, there’s at least breadcrumbs to understanding the genesis of how they came to be. Al and Miles were very helpful with that. I’m not a method actor, I don't write 250 pages of backstory — I like to get to it. I’m in service to Miles and Al and Tim. What is the story that they want to tell? Where do they desire this character to go? I want to be true to the text and the world they’ve created. And I want Judi to be the best villain, or perhaps simply the best misunderstood being, that she can be.
And in those conversations with Al and Miles and Tim, did you talk about how you all viewed Judi’s actions, and this experimentation her father did on her? And whether or not people will really see her as a villain, and what kind of nuance that provides?
Matarazzo: I think when she says that she volunteered for the experimentation, she does have that desire. I believe she would have been helped greatly by some form of therapy, but isn’t that what we do? Because her father’s focus was his work, she sees that, and thinks, “Oh, the only way that I can really achieve any kind of love or standing within my father’s eyes is to join him on this roller-coaster ride.” And that also calls into question nature versus nurture. How much of her father’s nature was already part of her? Did she have that same ambivalence towards human lives, and that very narrow-minded focus that outcasts are inherently much better than humans, and that this experimentation is doing the world a service? We can see, in all ways, how ideas and beliefs that stem from the larger idea of wanting to “make the world better” can sometimes lead to an absence of recognizing your fellow human being.
Did filming that big reveal and knowing where the character ends up inform the earlier scenes that you filmed later, and your overall performance?
Matarazzo: Oh, yeah. I had the background of who she really is, which was helpful. Which then adds into informing the questions of, “Well, how saccharine is she? How sweet is she? How much of a show does she put on? And how exhausting is that?” Wednesday is a very clear nemesis for Judi. And I think Judi’s ultimate downfall is that she didn’t think that she could get usurped by a teenage girl. There is an arrogance in her demise. So even though she is projecting this role of a secretary for Dr. Fairburn, she’s the one who’s really in charge of it all. And she feels that there’s no way, from her vantage point, that anybody is going to suspect anything. But Wednesday starts to unravel those threads, as Wednesday tends to do, and the whole thing comes tumbling down.
Have we truly seen the last of Judi?
Matarazzo: That’s a question for Miles and Al. I was like, “What if she had a twin?” I’ve always wanted to play a twin, as somebody who grew up watching All My Children and One Life to Live. There’s always that crazy twist. And again, as we can see in Season 2, even if you were considered dead, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily are gone.
