Thing, a very important member in The Addams Family canon, played a crucial role in Tim Burton’s recently-released spinoff Netflix series Wednesday. Following Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), the deadpan daughter of household master Gomez and matriarch Morticia, the supernatural series watches the titular character acquaint with her psychic abilities at Nevermore Academy — and along the way, the cleanly severed, disembodied Thing becomes Wednesday’s right-hand (no pun intended) through her ruthless teenage conquests.
Behind the scenes, Netflix revealed that Thing’s impressive movements were all thanks to a real-life magician, Victor Dorobantu, who had no acting experience prior to taking on the role.
“The first phone call I had with Tim, he wanted Thing to be derived from an actor, a performer,” said Tom Turnbull, VFX Supervisor on the Netflix series. “So we set out to find us an actor who could do the part. Somebody who had the right look to the hands, who had nimble fingers, was able to do all these moves. Also, they had to be young enough and supple enough to fit in very awkward situations.”
In creating Thing, Dorobantu spent hours wearing an “uncomfortable” blue morph suit, allowing editors to seamlessly erase the rest of his body in post-production. In preparation, the magician and the series’ crew had to think up creative ways to hide Dorobantu in small places, including under beds and in the floor, where Thing would normally have no problem fitting.
“Nobody knew how to do it. We came up with ideas together,” Dorobantu told Netflix’s Tudum of the role’s tricky filming procedures, which included employing a dolly for the magician’s fast movements. “We started from zero. Literally zero.”
Watch the behind-the-scenes video above to see all of the work that went into making Thing a thing.
Elsewhere in entertainment, Kit Harrington has teased what to expect from Jon Snow in the Game of Thrones spinoff.
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