Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.
The actress opens her camera roll to share her favorite memories from filming the smash Netflix hit.
Joy Sunday’s big break is coming in the form of Wednesday, the Netflix smash hit. It almost feels like fate: An actress with the last name Sunday starring in a show called Wednesday. “It’s a very corny joke that I make,” Sunday tells Town & Country over Zoom from Los Angeles.
The reaction to Wednesday has been out of this world for her. “It’s been so beautiful and so reaffirming and validating,” she shares. “I am so blessed to be in this position to have so many eyes on it.”
The New York native is in a scene-stealing role as mean girl Bianca Barclay, a siren at Nevermore Academy who faces off against Wednesday Adams (Jenna Ortega). “I’m so happy that people really connect to the complexity of my character,” she says. “As an actor, you always see your character in a very nuanced way, and so it’s really lovely for the audience to also connect to your character in that way—to really see all of the empathy and understanding.”
As millions of people continue to tune into the Addams family drama—it’s now Netflix’s third most-popular English language TV series of all time, and continuing to rise—Sunday opens her camera roll to share some snaps and memories from filming Wednesday in Romania.
“This is when we were up at the castle, doing a lot of the exteriors. It was a beautiful environment. We went away four or five days into the mountains to shoot—it was a little vacation, essentially.”
Cantacuzino Castle, in Bușteni, Romania, features as the exteriors of Nevermore Academy, while Monteoru House in Bucharest, Romania was used for the interiors.
“That’s my stunt double Phedra [Syndelle]. She was actually my stunt double on my first ever TV job—so it was full circle for us be on this job!”
Sunday had to learn how to fence for real for Wednesday. “About three days before I left for Romania, I had one training session with someone in Brooklyn and then flew over. Almost immediately, I was taking fencing classes with this Romanian instructor who was very intense at first, but really softened up, especially because I really got into it and enjoyed it. He was so passionate about it, so I took to it immediately.”
“This is Johnna and Ollie when we were shooting the Harvest Festival— one of our first night shoots. It was actually the first night shoot; a very cold introduction to Romania. But it was a fun day! The carnival was very thought out, they had actual go-karts, actual popcorn, and rides. But none of us could interact with it, we had jobs to do.”
Johnna Dias-Watso and Oliver Watson play Divina and Kent, the other two sirens at Nevermore along with Sunday’s Bianca. The trio spent a lot of time together in Romania.
“Georgie [Farmer, who plays Ajax] and Percy [Hynes White, who plays Xavier] would get bored on set. So you would just turn around and they’d be doing something!”
Farmer is pictured sitting in a trash can, for no reason.
This picture shows “me and Tommie [Earl Jenkins, who plays Mayor Noble Walker]. We didn’t have any scenes together—the only thing I have with him is at his funeral.”
The actors who played the students didn’t really interact with those who played the adults in the show, Sunday shares, except for Gwendoline Christie, who plays Nevermore Academy’s Principal Weems.
“Here we were having lunch, we had just had our makeup done for the Poe cup scene. Me and Johanna had to do the canoeing together, so we were in the same boat, quite literally.”
Like learning how to fence, the cast also had to learn how to canoe. “We had to race against each other, and so you had to really put in a lot of elbow grease in order to keep up—it was grueling.”
Sunday remembers, “The actual filming of it was quite fun. The first day it was so sunny and bright and warm, and then the second day was cold! That was the day we had to go in the water. The boat started sinking that we were in. The water was so cold, so when it actually hit me, I started hyperventilating. I’m also not the best swimmer; my body just like froze up. But I was also laughing—it was hysterical the whole time.”
“The Pilgrim stuff was quite fun. It was very cold at that point, but they had built out Pilgrim world, so there were barns, there were actual horses, actual chickens running around. I was fully living the Pilgrim fantasy. This costume is quite fun and it actually kept me warm as well; I loved the little hat.
This is “me and Naomi [Ogawa], who plays Yoko. This isn’t a shot from the show—but this was a shot they wanted us to do in the show, so we took a couple pictures.”
“Nightshades! Me, Johanna, Georgie, and Naomi.”
Working on the Nighshades scenes, Sunday remembers, “It was hilarious. Georgie is unbearable when it comes to not laughing. So those scenes, at points, were so difficult to get through because we would just end up cracking up. Those were really, really fun to film.”
Bianca always has a straight face, Sunday says, but, “I’m always having fun when I’m Bianca.”
“This is the mayor’s funeral; they had manufactured rain. It was actually quite the sunny day and then they had to put something over us and pound us with water. So here, we’re just getting ready to do that scene.”
Her favorite scenes were ones with the entire cast. As Sunday shares, “It was always really nice when we got to get together. Because we were there for so long, but you also were not always being used. So whenever we got to be together on set, it was always a blast.”
“This is Johnna and Jenna’s assistant Logi [Thorvaldsson], just outside the quad set. We would get bored on set and just end up wandering around being knuckleheads. So one of those moments!”
“That’s my makeup artist, Tia. We really had so much fun doing the Rave’N makeup, because we were so particular about it. We would always end up having a lot of fun, spending a lot of time doing makeup.”
Sunday herself had a lot of input on Bianca’s makeup—it was a very collaborative experience. Her Rave’N look was “inspired by something I had seen on an AfroPunk post, this graphic liner.”
“We were filming the [school dance] Rave’N at this point, and so they all have little plastics over them to protect their clothing, especially Percy—he’s Cornel Sanders over there!”
Everyone got along so well, Sunday shares. “The entire cast really leaned on each other while we were in Romania. We really bonded over being away from home.”
Pictured, L-R: Georgie Farmer, Oliver Watson, Percy Hynes White.
“Filming the Rave’N, we definitely had fun. We treated it like it was actually a dance. We also got drenched and we had to do it over and over again. But they split up those filming those scenes. So when we got to getting wet, we were just wet for about two hours.”
Pictured: Hunter Doohan
“With Johanna and Naomi, filming on one of the last days. We wrapped the following week.” The wrap party, Sunday shares with a smile, “was chaotic. And I think I have to leave it at that!”
“This is Percy, Georgie, and Ollie, on our last day on set. We had all gotten each other gifts—Ollie made a t-shirt with Percy’s face on it for Georgie, and I think also Percy got a t-shirt with Georgie’s face on it. They’re just taking a selfie.”
“This is for special effects, when they had to do tracking. I just thought the dots were pretty funny.”
If the show does return for a second season, Sunday hopes Bianca’s relationship with Wednesday continues to evolve. “I personally would have a lot of fun still going head to head with her, but there’s room for us to grow.” For Bianca, she hopes she gets to be “happy and settled” in future storylines.