American filmmaker Steven DeKnight faced criticism online after he commented on Jenna Ortega’s unprofessional behavior on Wednesday’s set. On March 8, 2023, the director replied to a Twitter user who was criticizing the 20-year-old actor’s remarks made during the Armchair Expert podcast. Ortega said that she was unhappy with the writers’ work on the show.

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During the March 6 episode of Armchair expert, Ortega said that she got involved with script writing on the set of Wednesday, and sometimes even revolted against the script supervisor because she has been protective of her titular character.

The 20-year-old added that initially in the script everything she did or roles had to play in the past did not justify the show’s titular character at all.

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DeKnight responded that he loves discussing lines and stories with the actors but sometimes they aren’t aware of which lines are and aren’t important for the storyline to make sense of it. He further stated that even though she is young, she should know how things work, adding that Ortega should ask herself how she would feel if the producers gave an interview talking about how “difficult she was and refused to perform the material.”

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The director concludes by saying that he loves her work. However, he called Ortega’s statement “beyond entitled and toxic.”

On March 16, DeKnight wrote a semi-apology to Ortega on Twitter for his statements. “I can’t stress this enough: She’s an amazing talent,” he said.

“It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly and also I’ll admit that writers are on edge because of the impending strike, myself included. A perfect storm,” DeKnight added.

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Twitter users bashed the filmmaker after his comments went viral. Several users slammed him and said that Ortega’s additional input on the script made the show iconic and that he should be more considerate of the actor’s opinion instead of criticizing. Some users asked to perform better professionally than criticize a young actor.