When it comes to the kookiest and spookiest family in pop culture, you have to go all out. And that is exactly what actor Fred Armisen did when it came time to portray the character of Uncle Fester in the Netflix series Wednesday.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, the star revealed how, in preparation to play the iconic bald macabre man, he decided to grab a razor and ditch all the hair on his head. At first, that may sound pretty extreme. However, when you look at the character’s history, it does make sense.
Wednesday is a retelling of the beloved cartoon characters The Addams Family from Charles Addams’ New Yorker comics. The fantasy series follows a teenage Wednesday Addams’s adventures in the boarding school for outcasts Nevermore. Although many of the Addams clan take second seat in the new TV series, Uncle Fester appears in the seventh episode, looking to crash with his niece and lay low before his next “job” in Boston.
Uncle Fester is one of the main members of the Addams Family and is therefore a well-known figure, having popped up in comic books, animated series, and family movie adaptations of Charles Addams’ original work. In short, expectations are high when it comes to getting his look down, and Armisen wanted to embody Fester as best as he could – even if that meant saying goodbye to a bald cap.
“They really did such a great job with the makeup and everything. I had no eyebrows. It was prosthetics over my eyebrows to give me that look,” Armisen said. “But I think that bald caps don’t look great all the time, so I was hoping to just make it that much more convincing.”
Armisen isn’t the first actor to shave their head when it comes to portraying Uncle Fester. Christopher Lloyd famously ditched his locks for the hit ’90s movie The Addams Family and then again for its sequel, The Addams Family Values.
Although Wednesday season 2 is yet to be confirmed, given the horror series‘ immense popularity, we can assume that it is only a matter of time before the Addams clan is back on our small screen. The question is, will Armisen shave his head again if that were the case? We hope so.
While we wait for more Wednesday news, why not check out our guides explaining how old Wednesday Addams is in the new Netflix series? Or why not find out which cello song Wednesday plays at night, or who plays young Morticia?