Who is behind Wednesday’s Hand, Tim Burton’s series

There’s no other way to say it: we speak with the hand. When Victor Dorobantu has finished playing the five-fingered disembodied being, the Thing, in the new series of Tim Burton Wednesday series of Tim Burtonhas decided to turn, so to speak, to another interpreter who in the past gave life to the same character.

Dorobantu, a 25-year-old Romanian magician, lived half a world away from Christopher Hart, who played Mano in the films of Addams family from the 90s, but they had a lot in common. Not only are they two of the only people on the planet to play this particularly strange character, but they’re both wizards. Hart still tours and is a fixture at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles.

Now that Wednesday is a monster hit on Netflix, Dorobantu has become the subject of countless searches on the Internet: «Everyone wants to know how Hand was made behind the scenes», says Dorobantu, «Everyone wants to know how the special effects work. A lot of people ask me, ‘Are you real?’

When Hart was contacted by Dorobantu, the former Hand actor had many of the same questions, with one exception: He knew how real the man behind the hand could be and how strange it was to channel an entire performance into one body part by erasing the rest.

“It’s going to sound weird, but part of me feels like my hand is an actor and it’s just a different role,” says Hart. “It’s almost like there are different Batmans.”

Not only has film technology evolved exponentially since The Addams family of 1991 and Addams Family Values of 1993, but also the vision of Burton di Mano was, of course, different. “When I spoke to Victor and we had our Zoom chat, he gave me a little sneak peek at some of the tricksı,” Hart says. “Mano was a very different kind of Mano. He had scars and stitches. He’s a completely different kind of interpretation.”

There is now a brotherhood of Mani, but one is missing. In the 1960s television series, Mano was usually played by the Lurch actor Ted Cassidywho died in 1979. Most people don’t know that she played both roles: “When you see the credits, it’s just Hand… Herself,” observes Hart.

Here’s how Dorobantu played the character Hart described as “a puppet with no cover.”

Victor Dorobantu as Thing, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams.

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Vanity Fair: The behind-the-scenes photos of her as Mano are fun to see. She is often squatted next to Jenna Ortega and wearing some kind of blue overalls.
Victor Dorobantu: “Yes, it’s a kind of ninja suit. We had to use it for special effects. It was my uniform, let’s say. I didn’t know there were so many photos of me behind the scenes. It’s interesting for me to see them too.”

How does it feel to wear that costume? It covers the whole face, but it looks like there are glasses underneath. Can you see through it?
«Yes, in front of the eyes there is a net. It’s comfortable enough. It’s just a lycra suit. You don’t feel it, and it also protects you from the cold, and in Romania we had to shoot in very cold conditions, in the forest and on the lake».

She’s a big guy too, isn’t she?
“Yes, I’m 1.90m and was trying to lose weight because I was quite big. At the time I weighed 100 kilos. Of course I thank everyone who adapted the sets for me, because we had to cut a lot of furniture and other things to fit me».

Is it hard being tall and having to fit into small spaces and disappear?
“It didn’t have to be done for all the takes, but some of it would have been better if we had a room to hide my body, because it would have been less work for the special effects technicians. Whenever we had the opportunity, we did. I’ve been under beds, in holes, in trapdoors, in bank safes. I had to find a way to put my body under people, behind objects. I can’t even remember them all.”

This is his first acting role. Before that, did he work as a magician?
“In Romania I’m mainly a close-up magician. I go around and do magic in people’s hands. I’m not the stage type. I do those shows too, but my main type of magic is up close. So I always use my hands».

Jenna Ortega regards Mano’s Victor Dorobantu, squeezing in an awkward spot.

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Since the Christopher Hart of 90s movies Addams family he was also a magician, is work experience crucial for Mano?
“I don’t think my being a wizard helped Mano much, because wizards are very mechanical with their hands. But the fact that magicians are used to doing a repetitive job over and over again helped a lot, a lot. Also, I play guitar a lot, so maybe that helps too, because you have to train your fingers all the time. So all of this brought the qualities we needed».

I was curious to know, because one of the things about being a magician is that the audience doesn’t notice what your hands are doing. With Mano, on the other hand, you want to be seen, you have to project emotions through your movements.
“It’s exactly as you say, because wizards don’t want to draw attention to their hands. But this time we had to do it 100%. So Tim and I and the special effects team tried to find a way to bring all the attention to the little details. If you notice, we don’t make too many movements. We don’t do too much body language and stuff like that. We try to show the small gestures. We have tried to maximize even the smallest movement».

What other elements contributed to the creation of Mano?
“We found a way to build on American sign language, the hand gestures that soldiers use in warfare. We tried to take the morse code, to take everything that was possible to do with the hands and to create our own language».

What was the hardest part to learn?
“I remember spending a lot of time trying to perfect the middle finger gesture. Even that was very difficult to express with so many emotions. It’s not just about the middle finger, but the whole emotion you get when you do it. So we paid attention to every single detail, and Tim really did that a lot. He was so passionate about Mano that he wanted to shoot the scene 20 times if we needed to ».

Looks like she spent a lot of time in the mirror…
“I got fished in the face, yes.”

Was he studying how the other fingers and the tension of the muscles reacted?
“Yup. If you watch that scene and pause it, you’ll see that the wrist stump remains a little twisted. So it’s like… I don’t know how to explain it.”

It’s a bit of an attitude.
“Yes Yes Yes”.

I see you have tattoos on the fingers of Mano’s hand.
“Yeah, I did them way before the shooting happened and the prosthetics team took a long time to cover them up with paint and stuff like that.”

Is it the play, pause and fast forward symbols?
«Yes, when I made them I thought about the possibility of pausing or playing with life. There are moments in life where you want to pause and enjoy it more and others where you want to rewind and see it again. And there’s a flash on my thumb because I’m… I don’t know how to say it. I am an agitated person. I’m like the Tasmanian devil. And then on the other side, I have a little tattoo of Hand, which I got a couple of years ago not knowing I was going to play it. I do not know. The only tattoo I got during filming was the Nightshade Society symbol on my chest.”

You must have been a huge fan of it Addams familyand di Mano before doing this job?
“I really loved this character because he has a big personality in a small hand. I watched them all when I was little.”

Did he watch 90s movies or 60s TV series?
“All. The animations, the new ones and the old ones. All”.

Victor Dorobantu as The Thing, peeking over Jenna Ortega’s shoulder Wednesday.

VLAD CIOPLEA/NETFLIX

What do you remember about approaching Christopher Hart about playing Mano in the cinema?
“He told me, ‘Oh, there’s a link between version one and version two of Mano!’ It was great. And he told me he was curious how she would go. Also, when I went to Hollywood for the premiere, we tried to meet, but we didn’t have time to because he’s a wizard at the Magic Castle and also a teacher. He’s one of my dreams to go there and see all the wizards there. He is my favourite, of course.’

So she talked to him afterwards and have you finished shooting? Not before?
“Yes, but before that I studied it a lot. I tried to find every single video with him, every single interview with him, because I wanted to know how Mano was done at the time, to be able to take some advice from him».

What did you find useful?
“I remember the most helpful was an interview where he tried to explain how difficult it is to keep your hands under the table, with your hands going numb. I really appreciated the kind of work she did. Because at the time, without special effects, it was much more difficult. You have had to endure many more positions than I have.’

What landed her in the role? Does she know? Was he a move guy? Was it the look of her hand?
“I never asked him! I wish Tim would tell me what he saw in me, but I remember going to the casting with no expectations. It was a casting in Bucharest. A couple of days later, someone called me to tell me that I was one of the last three wizards that had been chosen. When I arrived at Buftea Studios, near Bucharest, there was me and two other Romanian magicians of which I am a big fan. I thought, “I don’t stand a chance. These guys are much better than me.”

What happened then?
“The moment I met Tim, I felt there was a connection because when I put my hand on the table and we started talking, my hand was moving without knowing it. I was playing Mano while talking to Tim Burton. So I believe Tim saw in front of him an actor and the hand separately. So there was a connection right from the start.”

The Face is Listening: Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair, Victor Dorobantu as Thing in Wednesday.

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What can you tell us about your character? His has far more scarring and far more wear and tear than the previous Hands.
“Hand’s look bears Tim Burton’s signature, I think, all the scars and dead look. I personally tried to create a great contrast between the look of him, which looks mortal, and I tried to make Mano passionate, emotional, more like a human being, a kind human being. But I wanted to express the fact that when he needed to, he could be mean. I tried to make her lovable.”

He’s more of a pet than a person?
“Don’t make him angry! It’s not like a pet! I have tried to express this too. Well, when people look at the relationship between Wednesday and Mano, he looks like a pet because he’s always on her shoulder, like a parrot. I see Mano as a hero. He tries to save everyone. He tries to love everyone. He tries to do everything possible to help ».

Source: Vanity Fair

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