As Wednesday viewers remain divided about the choice of casting for Luis Guzmán, the great Gomez casting controversy resurfaces. In the Netflix series, Guzmán plays the compassionate father of the Addams family who gets along well with his adolescent daughter Wednesday (Jenna Ortega). Despite Guzman’s uncanny similarity to Charles Addams’ original comic strip forerunner, his casting drew criticism because of the success of Raul Julia’s sophisticated interpretation of the character in the 1990s two Addams Family movies.
Many people had high hopes for the television series based on the adored ’90s films, which starred Christina Ricci as Wednesday when it was first revealed. Consequently, viewers pictured an actor like Julia playing Gomez, with several recommending Oscar Isaac as a possible choice. After seeing the Netflix series, Boy. Fae reopened the topic in a video shared on Instagram. They expressed their enjoyment of the show while regretting what may have been if Isaac had been cast instead. Many readers disagreed with the initial poster, claiming that Guzmán should have been released instead of Gomez, demonstrating how contentious the matter of Gomez’s Wednesday casting remains.
Why Luis Guzman is an ideal choice for the role of Gomez
According to many Instagram users, the idea of Gomez and Morticia’s (Catherine Zeta-Jones) loving marriage is that the two are physically opposed to one another, demonstrating that Morticia loves Gomez for who he is and he feels the same way. By choosing the endearing Raul Julia for the Addams Family role, which produced a departure from the original comic strip character that has since come to be recognized as a critical component of the series, commenter @robmartin1989 went so far as to declare that “Hollywood wrecked Gomez.” Although many fans were thrilled to think that Isaac would play Gomez, some brought up the actor’s age and said he was still too young for the role.
While Isaac is a very skilled performer and shares Gomez’s distinctive mustache, Guzmán is a perfect match for Gomez in the original source material for all versions of The Addams Family, Addams’ comic strip. Guzmán is considerably shorter and heavier than Morticia, and he definitely looks the part with smoothed-down hair and a tastefully styled mustache. With his exuberant personality, emotional declarations to Morticia and Wednesday, and lovingly encouraging words and deeds on Wednesday, the actor truly inhabits his character despite his outward look. Guzmán’s character periodically embarrasses his daughter and was accused of murder when he was a teenager, both of which are in line with the show’s positioning as a coming-of-age story and gothic mystery adventure.
Guzmán’s casting as Gomez impressively brought the original depiction of the character to life, although some viewers would like to see him develop into the part and feel more at ease in season 2. After the awful response Guzmán received upon his casting purely because of his appearance, it is heartening to see so many Wednesday fans come to his defense. Hopefully, Wednesday season 2 viewers will continue to support the actor as his part develops as Wednesday’s family receives more screen time in the upcoming television show season.