Who plays Thing in Netflix’s brand-new Wednesday series and is the walking, non-talking, severed hand real, or is it a CGI fake?
Wednesday Addams is one of the most iconic gothic characters of all time, with Netflix’s new live-action series sending both her and actress Jenna Ortega to new levels of superstardom.
Thankfully, Wednesday has a helping hand as she tries to survive Nevermore Academy; the walking severed appendage known simply as Thing.
So, is Thing the result of CGI trickery or is the hand played by a real person, and if so, who portrays Thing in the new Wednesday series?
Who plays Thing in Wednesday?
Whilst having some aspects enhanced by CGI, Thing is indeed played by a real person with Victor Dorobantu’s right hand getting the role in Wednesday.
The Romanian-born Dorobantu is making his television debut in Wednesday, having made a name for himself as a magician in central Europe.
According to PopBuzz, citing a press release, it was vitally important to Tim Burton that Thing was played by a real person who would have to be on set during the filming process of Wednesday.
Dorobantu reportedly had to spend three hours preparing for each shoot, having to wear a blue body suit that the VFX teams could digitally remove from the final edit. However, there was also “a suitcase full of stand-in prosthetic hands cast in different positions” for when specific movements or positions were needed.
“Victor also ‘often had to have his body placed in unusual places on set to get the right shot — upside down, under floors, behind walls, and even inside walls.’” – PopBuzz.
Speaking at the Red-Carpet premiere, Dorobantu shared his excitement about seeing Wednesday and his right hand featuring in such a classic role. “I can’t even describe [this feeling], I don’t even know [the words], trust me I’m like in a combination of emotions like of crying, of laughing, of anger – I don’t know, it’s everything at the same time,” he said.
“The whole process was very hard; Thing was created from scratch. We did everything that we could to get to the point where Thing was expressing emotions by hand gestures, or body language. We just improvised and we just tried to make it natural.” – Victor Dorobantu, via Instagram.
Wednesday production designer Mark Scruton also described to Gold Derby how the set had to be adjusted in order for Dorobantu to position himself correctly for certain scenes, requiring fake walls and even trap doors.
“Suddenly we’re into this world, very similar to designing sets for the Muppets, where things have to be elevated, you have to have trapdoors, you have to have secret ways of getting the actor in.” – Mark Scruton, via Gold Derby.
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Scruton would then share how, “Bits of the set had to fly off or you had to have half a desk. There’s endless permutations of bits we had to come up with. A lot of that was slightly happening on the fly because we didn’t quite know where he was going to go, so we had to have endless options.”
“These shows specifically will get your expectations to the max. Fans of the Addams Family, I think that they won’t have these expectations from this show because it’s a Netflix one, its not a classic. But believe me, it’s going to go over that because the whole Addams Family universe is here, like Christina Ricci is here. Jenna Ortega did Wednesday incredibly good, Tim Burton is with us and it can’t go wrong.” – Victor Dorobantu, via Instagram.
You can follow Thing’s handy actor via Instagram @victor.dorobantu.
By Tom Llewellyn – [email protected]
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