Wednesday: Thora Birch leaves Addams Family series for personal reasons

Tim Burton is directing a live-action Addams Family series for the Netflix streaming service that will primarily focus on Wednesday Addams – which is why the show is titled Wednesday. We heard back in August that Thora Birch had signed on to play a character named Tamara Novak, “Wednesday’s dorm mother and the only ‘normie’ on staff at Nevermore Academy, with a focus on all things botanical.” Sadly, Deadline reports today that Birch has had to leave the Wednesday production before filming was complete.

Wednesday is being filmed in Romania, but a representative for series producer MGM has confirmed that Birch returned to the United States “to attend to a personal matter” and won’t be returning to the production. According to Deadline’s sources, she’s dealing with a family illness.

Apparently Birch had finished filming the bulk of her scenes for the show, but right now it’s not clear how much of her performance – if any of it – we’ll end up seeing. Here’s what Deadline had to say about it:

The role will not be recast, with producers looking to add a new character to the show’s first season, I hear. It is unclear whether that character will take over for Tamara and help close out her planned storyline with both of them co-existing on the show or whether the new character will replace Tamara and Birch’s scenes will be reshot.

I hope Birch’s Tamara Novak will still be a presence on the show when we get to see this season.

Created by showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar, Wednesday is described as

a comedic, supernaturally-infused coming-of-age series that follows the teenage girl’s 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 town, and solve a mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new relationships at Nevermore.

Jenna Ortega is playing Wednesday Addams, with Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones as her parents, Gomez and Morticia. Also in the cast are Riki Lindhome as Wednesday’s therapist Dr. Valerine Kinbot; Joy Sunday as Siren Nevermore student Bianca Barclay; Emma Myers as Wednesday’s sunny roommate Enid Sinclair; Hunter Doohan as townie Tyler Galpin; Moosa Mostafa as quirky Nevermore student Eugene Otinger; Georgie Farmer as awkward and shy Nevermore student Ajax Petropolus; Naomi J. Ogawa as vampire Nevermore student Yoko Tanaka; Percy Hynes White as supernaturally artistic Nevermore student Xavier Thorpe; Jamie McShane as Sheriff Donovan Galpin, Tyler’s father, who has a vendetta against Gomez; Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems, “the principal of Nevermore Academy who still has an axe to grind with her former classmate Morticia Addams”; Victor Dorobantu as Thing, the non-verbal disembodied hand; Issac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams; George Burcea as Lurch; Tommie Earl Jenkins as Mayor Walker; Iman Marson as Lucas Walker; William Houston as Joseph Crackstone; Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo as Deputy Santiago; Oliver Watson as Kent; Calum Ross as Rowan; and Johnna Dias Watson as Divina.

The 8 episode series marks Burton’s TV directing debut. Burton is also executive producing the show alongside Gough, Millar, Jonathan Glickman of Glickmania, Andrew Mittman of 1.21, Kayla Alpert, Gail Berman, Steve Stark, and Kevin Miserocchi of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.