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Gwendoline Christie says Wednesday is the first time she's ever felt beautiful on screen

25 November 2022, 12:05 | Updated: 19 April 2024, 09:42

Watch this inside look at Wednesday Addams from the mind of Tim Burton

By Katie Louise Smith

"Never once did I feel like there was something to hide or something to be ashamed of. [Colleen Atwood] made me feel incredible."

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After years of portraying Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, Captain Phasma in Star Wars and her most recent role as Lucifer in Netflix's The Sandman, Gwendoline Christie says that Wednesday's Principal Larissa Weems is the "most glamorous character" she's ever played.

Gwendoline plays Nevermore Academy's principal and former school mate of Morticia and Gomez Addams in the new, Jenna Ortega-led series. Weems is powerful, glam, fierce, and a foil for most of Wednesday's shenanigans.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gwendoline revealed how the creation of Principal Weems became a collaborative effort between her, director Tim Burton and costume designer Colleen Atwood, and how Weems' eventual look made her feel beautiful on screen "for the first time".

Gwendoline Christie says Tim Burton gave her freedom to help create Larissa Weems. Picture: Michael Tullberg/FilmMagic, Netflix

When she was offered the role of Principal Weems in the Netflix series, Gwendoline revealed that she was pretty much given freedom to make the character into whatever she wanted – wardrobe, aesthetic and vibe included.

Explaining how Weems' signature glamorous look came to be, Gwendoline said: "This idea kept coming to me of Larissa Weems being someone who was an outcast, who went to a school for outcasts, that was always second best and was always in Morticia's shadow."

"What kept coming to me was this idea of this Hitchcock-style heroine, this screen siren, that maybe that young woman would look to our mystic portal, the cinema, to be an incarnation of her fantasies. And weirdly, Tim had exactly the same idea and so did Colleen Atwood."

Gwendoline Christie says Larissa Weems is the first time she's felt beautiful on screen. Picture: Netflix

Expressing her gratitude towards Tim, Colleen and the hair and makeup team, Gwendoline then continued: "It is the first time I've ever felt beautiful on screen."

"The brilliance of Colleen is she is supremely talented," she added. "She's also hugely experienced. That experience cannot be underlined enough because she is able to look at your body and emphasize different elements, emphasize your strong points."

"The way she made me feel was my body felt celebrated and beautiful. Never once did I feel like there was something to hide or something to be ashamed of. She made me feel incredible. She was also enormously collaborative and wanted to know what I thought, which I was quite nervous initially to show her any references, but she welcomed them and she loved them."