‘FANS ARE GOING TO LOVE IT!’

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES, 53, and LUIS GUZMÁN, 66, on playing kooky couple Morticia and Gomez Addams

How did you approach portraying new versions of these legendary and popular characters?

CATHERINE Morticia is such an iconic female figure, but I put my own twist on her. I didn’t want to play her as a Halloween-costumed caricature; I wanted to find the root of her, in that she’s a mother-of-two and extremely in love with her husband.

LUIS I’ve grown up watching Gomez and he was always a fun, endearing man, with so much love for his wife and kids. I wanted to honour that, but also put my stamp on it. To me, Gomez is about love and passion, and that was relatively easy to do.

Do you think that Morticia and

Gomez are still madly in love? CATHERINE They share true and unadulterated love, which leads to way too many public displays of affection and embarrassment for family members! They’ve been together since they were teenagers, so this shows their real history of love. LUIS It’s definitely a pure kind of love. They have a language, which is passionate and full of admiration for each other. Gomez loves Morticia more than anything in this world.

How did you feel when you stepped into your costumes for the first time? CATHERINE We didn’t want to put Morticia in trousers just to contemporise her; we wanted to do the iconic look. So when I first put on the dress, hair and make-up, I was just so in it that I could have been Morticia at a petrol station!

LUIS Once all the pieces came together – the incredible suit, the teeth, the wig, the moustache – it just came so naturally to me. It was like I went through my own personal rebirth as Gomez.

What do you think fans of The Addams Family TV show and films will make of this new series? CATHERINE They’re going to love this series because it’s brought the story into the 21st century and the family is dealing with all these issues that are relevant today. I also can’t imagine how excited fans are to have a director like Tim Burton bring them the next edition of Addams Family adventures.

LUIS Times are different now, and the characters are different. We bring a whole new layer, plus it’s Tim Burton. Fans are going to love our family!