A very familiar face is returning to Netflix‘s Wednesday.
In the first trailer (below) for the second half of season two, Gwendoline Christie has returned as Larissa Weems, who in the first season was the shapeshifting principal of Nevermore Academy. The character was killed in the first season finale, but now Weems is back to serve as Wednesday’s pesky “spirit guide” that only she can see (Wednesday, understandably, seems rather taken aback by this development).
Absent from the trailer: Lady Gaga, who is playing an as-yet-unrevealed part in the second half of the season.
The first four episodes of the new season are currently blowing up Netflix’s TV most-watched chart, with 50 million views worldwide, which is about the same viewership as the blockbuster first season two years ago. The second half of the season drops Sept. 3.
The hit series starring Jenna Ortega was the focus of a recent Hollywood Reporter cover story, where the star talked about the new season and her creative partnership with director Tim Burton.
“Netflix has a lot more trust this time around,” she said. “So we were able to do things on a grander scale and were able to spend more time on sequences. There are also a lot of new castmembers like Steve Buscemi and Billie Piper, and doing a scene with them pushes you further because they’re so gifted.”
And Ortega also discussed the stress of getting the very specific role just right. “Sometimes I’ll catch a glance of a shot and realize part of why a scene isn’t working is because my posture’s off, or my chin isn’t tilted down enough, or that I’m not still enough,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever shot a scene in my life that has not kept me up at night and given me nightmares.”
In addition, showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar recently sat down for an extensive interview about the show and its future. “Wednesday can’t stand still,” Millar said. “She has to have some emotional progression each season. It doesn’t necessarily need to be articulated in a traditional way or be something that she’s even aware of. But there has to be some level of progression without diluting the iconic-ness of Wednesday. It’s a knife-edge of tone and character. We never want to betray Wednesday.”