“Wednesday” Season 2’s New Characters: See Who’s Joining Nevermore Academy (Including Guest Star Lady Gaga!)

NEED TO KNOW

• Wednesday season 2 premiered on Aug. 6

• The Netflix series welcomed new Nevermore students and teachers, including Steve Buscemi’s Principal Dort and Billie Piper’s Isadora Capri

• Lady Gaga will guest star as Rosaline Rotwood, a chilling instructor

Things are getting even spookier — and more star-studded — at Wednesday‘s Nevermore Academy.

Netflix’s Addams family spinoff is back with new mysteries and a stacked lineup of new cast members for season 2, which premiered on Aug. 6. In May 2024, Netflix confirmed that Oscar nominee Steve Buscemi had joined the show in a mysterious new role, kicking off a wave of casting announcements that delighted fans.

Those included Billie Piper, Thandiwe Newton and Back to the Future icon Christopher Lloyd — who, fittingly, played Uncle Fester in the 1990s Addams Family films. But one of the buzziest additions is Lady Gaga, who will have a cameo as a legendary teacher at Nevermore Academy.

Returning to the eerie halls of Nevermore this season are Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzmán as Gomez and Emma Myers as Enid, who have even more secrets to unravel and sinister forces to fight.

Here’s everything to know about the new cast of characters joining Wednesday season 2.

Warning: Wednesday season 2 spoilers ahead!

Steve Buscemi as Principal Dort

Buscemi joins the cast of Wednesday season 2 as Principal Barry Dort, Nevermore Academy’s new — and unorthodox — principal, who is the polar opposite of the chic and authoritative Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie).

“He was such a contrast to Gwendoline Christie,” co-showrunner Miles Millar told The Hollywood Reporter in July 2025. “When you first meet him, you feel like you’re coming into a new world where Wednesday has this whole different element to deal with at school.”

According to Millar, Dort is “incredibly into Nevermore,” sporting purple branded caps and marching under a banner of “outcast pride” to “save” the school by rejecting Normie influence.

In April 2025, Buscemi spoke to PEOPLE about working with Ortega, saying, “She’s just, she’s so sharp and funny and down to earth. And just a wonderful actress, a wonderful scene partner. The best.”

He also hinted about the new episodes, noting he “loved working” on them and thinks “it’s going to be a great season.”

Billie Piper as Isadora Capri

In Wednesday season 2, Piper embraces her new role as Isadora Capri, Nevermore’s head of music. Introduced as a “former child prodigy,” Capri is described by Netflix’s Tudum as “brilliant, intense, and enigmatic,” with an interest in nurturing both Wednesday’s mysterious musical talent and Enid’s raw potential.

Piper was a child prodigy herself, with her first single “Because We Want To” debuting on the top of the UK Singles Chart, making her the youngest artist to do so at 15 years old. Seemingly, the Doctor Who star wanted to return to that experience, telling Radio Times in July 2025 that she wanted to embody a “really accomplished musician” and someone who has “an interesting past of her own.”

Evie Templeton as Agnes DeMille

Making her first major on-screen appearance, Evie Templeton takes on the role of Agnes DeMille, a new student at Nevermore who idolizes Wednesday.

Speaking with Teen Vogue in July 2025, Templeton revealed a bit more about her breakout role.

“It was not hard to be a big fan of Wednesday because obviously Jenna [Ortega] is such a wonderful person. It was just really great getting to play around with sort of the relationship dynamics between our two characters and sort of building upon that relationship,” she said.

Christopher Lloyd as Professor Orloff

Lloyd returns to the Addams Family universe in Wednesday season 2 as Professor Orloff, Nevermore’s long-serving — and notoriously stern — critiquer of deviance and mischief.

Described by Netflix’s Tudum as the school’s “longest-serving teacher,” Orloff patrols the hallways looking for troublemakers, specifically Wednesday’s little brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez).

Lloyd famously starred as the original Uncle Fester in the 1990s Addams Family films — a role that even Ortega was starstruck by.

“Christopher Lloyd I’m still quite shocked by,” she told Good Morning America in August 2025. “I don’t know how to process that, his history in film in general, but then also his relation to the Addams Family.”

Lady Gaga as Rosaline Rotwood

The queen of pop joins Wednesday season 2 with her guest roles as Rosaline Rotwood, a Nevermore teacher whose shadowy presence only makes an already eerie hall colder. Gaga’s character will arrive in the second batch of season 2 episodes, per a post from Netflix on X.

Gaga’s role was announced during Netflix’s Tudum event in May 2025, when the singer emerged from a coffin marked “Here Lies the Monster Queen” and performed a medley of “Zombieboy” mixed with the Addams family theme, “Bloody Mary” and “Abracadabra.” Ortega even joined her for part of the final song.

Co-showrunner Alfred Gough told The Hollywood Reporter in July 2025 that Gaga’s role came from the viral use of her song “Bloody Mary” over Wednesday’s season 1 dance. “She seemed perfect,” he said. “We were excited to find her a small role in the show — which is all we can really say about that at this point.”

Joanna Lumley as Grandmama Hester Frump

Dame Joanna Lumley joins Wednesday’s second season as Grandmama Hester Frump, Morticia’s formidable mother and the commanding figure behind the Addams family legacy. Hester is the matriarch of Frump Mortuaries, one of the most successful outcast-run enterprises in the country.

Millar teased some generational friction within the Addams lineage to Netflix’s Tudum in August 2025, saying, “Wednesday and Hester get along great. Other than Fester, her Grandmama is probably Wednesday’s favorite person and the one she feels the most kinship with… Hester is also somebody Wednesday can use against her mother. It’s a delicious family triangle to set up.”

Lumley said Hester’s presence grew organically during production, too. “Hester is anarchic, rich and powerful, and her trade is graveyards and burial chambers,” she told What to Watch in August 2025. “She had huge abilities, but says she’s retired them — although she can occasionally fish them out of the deep and use her second-sight abilities.”

Owen Painter as Slurp

Newcomer Owen Painter makes a notable debut in season 2 as Slurp, a reanimated corpse with a mysterious connection to Nevermore Academy. Slurp adds a macabre twist to the halls of the school — he’s not merely undead, but somehow tied to the academy’s dark past and present secrets, getting entangled with Wednesday along the way.

The official Wednesday Instagram announcement in July 2025 teased his arrival simply, yet ominously: “New character. new secrets. welcome Owen Painter to the world of Wednesday. Slurp is a reanimated corpse with a special tie to Nevermore.”

Haley Joel Osment as The Kansas City Scalper

Haley Joel Osment’s role has already been public for several months, as he’s featured in the season’s opening six minutes, which were released at Netflix’s Tudum event in May 2025.

The actor plays the Kansas City Scalper, a doll-obsessed serial killer that Wednesday admits she’s hunted since she was 11. The killer is “a beauty school dropout who became obsessed with hair,” transforming that fixation into a murderous ritual, Gough told Netflix’s Tudum in June 2025.

At the start of the season, Wednesday is bound in the Scalper’s basement before Thing (Victor Dorobantu) swoops in to rescue her. Once free, she wields a knife and coolly declares, “Let’s play dolls,” before scalping the murderer herself.

For many fans, Osment’s chilling presence triggers immediate nostalgia: He’s the child actor behind the iconic “I see dead people” line from The Sixth Sense.

Thandiwe Newton as Dr. Rachael Fairburn

Newton joins the Wednesday season 2 cast as Dr. Rachael Fairburn, the chief psychiatrist at Willow Hill Psychiatric Facility — the imposing institution where Tyler Galpin is incarcerated. She’s a groundbreaking figure in the realm of outcast mental health, a “trailblazer” who treats those beyond society’s norms, Millar told Netflix’s Tudum in August 2025.

Newton is known for her Emmy-winning Westworld performance and standout roles in Crash, Mission: Impossible 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Heather Matarazzo as Judi

Heather Matarazzo joins season 2 as Judi, the upbeat — but unexpectedly unsettling — executive assistant to Dr. Fairburn at Willow Hill Psychiatric Facility. Although she’s known for her sunny demeanor, Judi quickly reveals an icy streak.

Matarazzo is best-known for her role in The Princess Diaries, playing best friend as Lilly Moscovitz. She also appeared in Welcome to the Dollhouse, for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance at the age of 12.

Read the original article on People