How Jenna Ortega Sacrificed School for Her Career and Won Tim Burton Over With Her Dark Sense of Humor to Play Wednesday Addams
Wednesday made a splash among the viewers, so we were curious to find out more about the actors and actresses who were in it. Jenna Ortega in particular is in the spotlight right now. She is a young but promising actress who performed her role perfectly and made everyone love the dark Barbie with braids, Wednesday Addams.
Now, Jenna is 20 years old, and she’s becoming popular as an actress. But of course, it hasn’t always been like this. Even as a little girl, Jenna knew what she wanted to achieve. At the age of 6, she told her parents she wanted to star in movies. They weren’t thrilled about it and told her not to think about such a career. But she didn’t give up. She had to literally beg her mom until she gave her a book of monologues. Jenna chose the most dramatic one and read it. She was almost hysterical, and her mom was kind of scared because she didn’t understand what was going on.
It was then that they realized that Jenna was really talented. Her parents finally accepted her dream. At the age of 8, Jenna started going to auditions, and her mom helped her a lot by driving her long distances to audition locations. Soon, Ortega made her movie debut.
Her first roles weren’t very big. She played supporting characters in Iron Man 3 and Insidious: Chapter 2. But these movies were successful in the box-office. Soon, she had lots of new offers. She was in such series as Rake, Jane the Virgin, and Richie Rich. She then became a star on the Disney Channel when she played Harley Diaz in Stuck in the Middle.
While Jenna was becoming a successful actress, she missed other important parts of teenage life. She had to sacrifice everything in the name of success. And now, she sometimes regrets that she didn’t have a normal school experience. She comments that, in a way, she still lives by the decisions of a 6-year-old girl. For better or worse, she grew up on movie sets, spending a lot of time with older colleagues.
At the same time, she also says she was very lucky to be in a place where she can work.
Jenna auditioned for a role in Scream in 2021. She was interested in the role of Tara Carpenter, a teenage girl that was attacked. It seems like the perfect role for Jenna, but she was quite pessimistic about it. Even though she was a great choice, she said that Hollywood often chooses older actors for the roles of teenagers. But a few months later, she got a call, and she nailed the role.
On the set, she made friends with her older colleagues. David Arquette taught her to paint, Courteney Cox invited her to dinner, and Neve Campbell even made her beach house available for the younger cast members, including Jenna, so they could go surfing.
It was this role in the horror film that helped Jenna get her breakthrough role of Wednesday Addams. Before the audition for Wednesday, Jenna was doing a scary scene for another movie, and to impress the casting team, she showed up for the audition wearing the makeup from that film. It worked, and it made Tim Burton laugh, so she got the part.
The actress often appears on the sets of horror films because she’s really good in such roles. She is hard to scare, she has a lot of fun on the sets, and laughs with her colleagues. And she, like her character, also loves writing and learning about the anatomy of animals.
She was also often compared to Wednesday when she was a child. The actress says that they even have a similar sense of humor, awkward and dark.
After the release of the series, Jenna became incredibly popular. Many viewers and critics really liked her acting. Now, the actress is busy in several projects, and soon, she will appear on the screens as Tara in Scream and in Miller’s Girl. It’s also very probable that Wednesday will get another season.
The actress has a lot of plans for her future acting career. And we, the viewers, will wait for her new roles and watch this amazing talent test herself in new ways to earn her place in Hollywood.
Have you watched any movies or series with Jenna Ortega? What do you think about her acting talent and persistence?