Netflix’s Wednesday Confirms Fred Armisen is Uncle Fester

For some reason the creators behind Netflix’s Wednesday TV series, a new reimagining of The Addams Family, have been very secretive about who is playing Uncle Fester in the upcoming show. With the official trailer for the series having just been revealed at New York Comic Con however the cat is officially out of the bag with Netflix confirming that Portlandia star Fred Armisen will be playing the part in the new series. Famously played by Christopher Lloyd in Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1990s reboot of the property, fans will be eagerly awaiting to see how Armisen’s version compares to one they already know and love.

With the confirmation of Armisen’s role we know have a full idea of the Addams Family Tree in the new series, including: Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams, and naturally, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday and Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester. Two other key role will also appear with Victor Dorobantu credited as “Thing,” the anthropomorphic hand from the series, and George Burcea playing the family butler, Lurch.

“We’ve never seen her as a teenager girl,” Ortega said previously about the new version of the character. “You know, it’s funny and sweet and almost charming to hear this eight-year-old’s obsession with murder and blood and guts. As she gets older, that nasty attitude or [those] biting remarks, it’s almost kind of hard not to make it sound like every other teenager girl So, it’s like how do we establish this character and give her the same fire without letting her become something that she’s not? Also, it’s an eight-hour series so, for an emotionless character, there has to be some sort of an emotional arc.”  

Netflix describes Wednesday as “a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy, where she attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the murder mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore.” 

Ortega (Scream) leads a cast that includes Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) as Nevermore Academy Principal Larissa Weems, Jamie McShane (The Lincoln Lawyer) as Sheriff Galpin, Percy Hynes White (The Gifted) as Xavier Thorpe, Hunter Doohan (Your Honor) as Tyler Galpin, Riki Lindhome (Duncanville) as Dr. Valerie Kinbott, and Christina Ricci (1991’s The Addams Family) as Marilyn Thornhill. Also featured are Emma Myers (Girl in the Basement) as Enid Sinclair, Joy Sunday (Dear White People) as Bianca Barclay, Naomi J Ogawa (Skylines) as Yoko Tanaka, Moosa Mostafa (The Last Bus) as Eugene Ottinger, and Georgie Farmer (Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle) as Ajax Petropolus.

All eight episodes of Wednesday are streaming November 23 on Netflix.