Who Does Christina Ricci Play in Netflix's 'Wednesday'?

There are few actors who have become synonymous with the characters they portray onscreen. Christopher Reeve will forever be Superman, Kevin Conroy will continue to be regarded as the voice of Batman, and Christina Ricci will always be known as Wednesday Addams.

So, when Netflix decided to rejuvenate The Addams Family franchise, which was first created by Charles Addams as single-panel cartoons in 1938, it seemed only natural to bring Ricci on board in some aspect, creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar told Newsweek.

Ricci first brought the character of Wednesday Addams to life in 1991's The Addams Family, which was followed in 1993 by Addams Family Values. Now, the part of Wednesday is being immortalized on the small screen by Jenna Ortega, 20.

Who Does Christina Ricci Play in Netflix's 'Wednesday'?

In Wednesday, Ricci, 42, encounters her successor on multiple occasions as she takes on the role of a teacher in Wednesday Addams' new school, Nevermore Academy. The 15-year-old joins the school for pupils with supernatural gifts after defending her brother from his bullies using nefarious means.

Ricci's character is named Marilyn Thornhill but, unlike the students and teachers of Nevermore Academy, Ms Thornhill doesn't have any special abilities or powers. She is a "normie," a normal human, as headmistress Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie) explains in one episode.

This isn't the first time that Gough and Millar have invited the most-famous actor of a franchise to play a character in a new role opposite their successor. The pair did this in their show Smallville, where Superman actor Christopher Reeve played Dr. Virgil Swann opposite Tom Welling's Clark Kent.

"When you do something like this you really want the blessing of the person who was most iconic in the role," Gough said. "It's like when we had Christopher Reeve in Smallville. You want that stamp of approval."

Speaking of Ricci, Gough added: "She really liked the script. She really liked this version of it. [It] was totally different, in terms of the story, from her version, and she just wanted to be a part of it.

"And, obviously, she had a great relationship with Tim [Burton, who directed four episodes of the show]. They'd done Sleepy Hollow together and she was just game. She was all in and she was just incredible to work with, an incredible professional."

Thornhill teaches the botany class at Nevermore, but she is also always on hand to try to support Wednesday during her first school year, which creates touching moments that Gough and Millar felt showed Ricci entrusting Ortega with the character.

"It was wonderful to see Jenna and Christina in the same scene, these two iconic characters, the passing of the torch really from one generation to the next," Millar said.

"But, yeah, [Ricci] was incredibly enthusiastic and up for anything on set, so it was gorgeous, just the timing worked out beautifully in terms of her availability, and the character she responded to, [...] you hope for these things and then it happens."

"It's one of those shows where everything we could have wanted happened. With casting Morticia, we had Catherine Zeta-Jones. We have an Oscar-winning actress with such magnetic screen presence as Morticia Addams, it's just... you couldn't get better casting than that," Millar added.

"And Luis [Guzmán] as Gomez as well, we loved the idea of returning it [to the comics], to be more authentic to the original Addams Family illustrations, the cartoons from The New Yorker magazine. Gomez's silhouette is very much Luis, and just seeing the family together as a group is just incredible.

"We had the photoshoot with Catherine and Luis and Isaac [Ordonez], who plays Pugsley, so it's just really making sure that we stay true to the Charles Addams cartoons."

Wednesday is available to watch on Netflix now.