Jenna Ortega is reliving her early days on set as a child actor.
“I really had it going for me as a child because I can’t think of one mistake I made. Is that a terrible thing to say?” Ortega, 23, told Esquire in an interview published Tuesday, August 11. “I feel like I make mistakes now all the time, but as a child, I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on.”
She continued, “I wasn’t asking for a sip of water. I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody. Maybe that was my mistake [of] not actually looking after myself.”
Ortega, who rose to fame as a child actor on Jane the Virgin and Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle, landed the titular role on Netflix’s Wednesday in 2022. (Wednesday is a prequel series in the iconic Addams Family franchise.)
Why Jenna Ortega Was ‘Confused’ by the Success of ‘Wednesday’
“I thought my career was going to be over after [Wednesday]. I panicked. I had no idea,” she recalled to Esquire. “I was so confused, and then they started talking about this show and this big release that they were doing. And when we were shooting in Romania, it felt like this small little thing, which maybe was naive ‘cause Tim Burton was involved, but the cast and I used to laugh about it. ‘Wow, this is is an insane shoot for it to really not be acknowledged.’”
Ortega has since scored roles in the likes of You and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and she’s long been candid about the origins of her Hollywood path.
“Children aren’t supposed to be working like that. They are supposed to be climbing trees and drawing and going to school,” she told The New York Times in August 2024. “Some of those kids’ parents don’t even take school seriously, so I feel really, really fortunate to have had parents who made sure that I hung out with friends, made sure that I went to public school and wouldn’t allow me to work on a job unless I had straight A’s and was prioritizing my sleep and my schoolwork.”
Jenna Ortega Says Child Stars ‘Aren’t Supposed to Be Working Like That’
She added at the time, “Child acting is strange. I see why my parents felt so hesitant about it, because you’re putting a child in an adult workplace. I think if I had just stayed growing up in Coachella Valley, I would be a completely different person. I wouldn’t speak the way that I do or approach interactions the way that I do.”
According to Ortega, pursuing acting at a young age “completely changed [her] way of thinking and going about life.”
“When I speak to other child actors, I can pick them out instantly because … it’s just very specific, like some secret little language or something that we all share,” she said at the time. “There’s times that I regret it; there’s times that my parents regret it. Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t believe in that because if anything, I’m incredibly grateful for the lessons that it did teach me.”
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