Christina Ricci—who stars opposite Jenna Ortega in Tim Burton’s Wednesday—has an explanation as to why the iconic Addams Family character no longer belongs to her.

In Season 1 of Wednesday, Ricci stars as Marilyn Thornhill, the dorm mother of Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) and her roommate, Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers). Marilyn also teaches botanical science at Nevermore Academy and as the season progresses in the hit Netflix series, the plot reveals that there’s much more to her than meets the eye.

Long before Ricci joined the Wednesday cast, however, she defined the first live-action film version of Wednesday Addams in the 1991 hit The Addams Family and reprised the role for the 1993 sequel Addams Family Values.

More than 30 years later, Ricci believes the character now belongs to Ortega.

“Jenna is so good, and her characterization is so good,” Ricci told The Hollywood Reporter.

As such, Ricci is okay with not having the role of Wednesday associated with her now.

“It really is different than what I was doing,” Ricci told THR of how Ortega has interpreted the role. “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.”

Besides, Ricci added, she wants those actors who played the role before and after her to share in the credit of breathing life into the character, too.

“Wednesday’s been played by many different people over the years,” Ricci told THR. “I’m not comparing it to Shakespeare, but you know how lots of people have played Juliet? It’s like that.”

Who Else Has Played Wednesday Addams?

The Addams Family, of course, is the brainchild of the late illustrator Charles Addams, whose first cartoon of The Addams Family appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1938, according to the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation.

The first live-action iteration of The Addams Family appeared on ABC-TV for two seasons from 1964-66, starring John Addams and Carolyn Jones as Gomez and Morticia Addams, while Lisa Loring played their daughter Wednesday.

From there, The Addams Family turned into an animated series in 1973 for a 16-episode, one-season run. Cindy Henderson voiced Wednesday in the series, but perhaps the most unique casting decision came with then-child actor Jodie Foster voicing the role of Wednesday’s brother Pugsley.

After that, the creepy and kooky and all-together ooky bunch returned to live-action TV from 1998-99 on the Fox Family Channel for a very long, 65-episode season of The New Addams Family. Nicole Fugure played Wednesday in that version of the tale, while Glenn Taranto and Ellie Harvey played Gomez and Morticia.

Christina Ricci’s turn as Wednesday came up next with her two Addams Family films in 1991 and 1993, which also starred Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston as Gomez and Morticia.

In between the two live-action movies, another animated version of The Addams Family aired for 21 episodes from 1992-93. The original live-action Gomez Addams—John Astin—voiced the cartoon version of the character, while Nancy Linari and Debbie Derryberry voiced Morticia and Wednesday, respectively.

In 2019, The Addams Family returned to animation one more time, for a big-screen version of the tale starring Chloë Grace Moretz as the voice of Wednesday, alongside the voices of Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron as Gomez and Morticia. The trio reprised their voice roles once again for an animated Addams Family sequel in 2021.

A year later, of course, Jenna Ortega starred in the title role of Tim Burton’s live-action Wednesday series on Netflix opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as Morticia and Gomez.

The trio, of course, will be returning for Wednesday Season 2, which is currently in production. There’s no word yet whether Ricci will be back for the second season.