Jenna Ortega may be one of Hollywood’s hottest young stars now, but there was a point when she was seriously thinking about walking away from acting for good.
The ‘Wednesday’ star recently revealed that after finishing her run on Disney Channel’s ‘Stuck in the Middle’, which aired from 2016 to 2018, she was close to calling it quits. At the time, she was entering high school, feeling unsure about what came next, and facing the pressure of having to prove herself all over again.
Jenna Ortega Thought It Might Be Time To Quit
Speaking on Kid Cudi’s ‘Big Bro’ podcast, Ortega said that once her Disney chapter ended, she found herself at a real crossroads.
“I didn’t know what else I was gonna do,” she explained. “I’ve never really considered anything else.” Still, she admitted that as a teenager, it felt like maybe the right time to step back.
“It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to,” Ortega said. “I was starting high school, and, ‘it was a good run’ sort of thing.”
She added that she and her team had been talking about that possibility for months. After years as a child actor, she was suddenly in a position where she had to meet new casting directors and convince them she was more than a former Disney kid.
The Role That Changed Everything
Then came ‘You’.
Ortega said booking the role of Ellie Alves in Season 2 of Netflix’s hit thriller changed her whole outlook. Once she got to set, something clicked.
“And then, I think I booked that show ‘You’, and then I went on that set and I loved it and had the best time,” she said. “I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go.’”
In Season 2 of ‘You’, Penn Badgley’s Joe Goldberg moves from New York to Los Angeles in an attempt to escape his violent past. Ortega’s Ellie, his sharp and curious teenage neighbor, quickly becomes part of the chaos.
Things Worked Out Pretty Well
That one role helped push Ortega into a very different phase of her career. Since then, she has built one of the strongest résumés of her generation, with credits including the ‘Scream’ movies, ‘X’, ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’, ‘Death of a Unicorn’, and, of course, the title role in Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’.
She also reunited professionally with Kid Cudi after they both appeared in Ti West’s 2022 horror film ‘X’.
Next up, Ortega appears in ‘The Gallerist’, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and also stars Natalie Portman.
Looking back now, it is hard to imagine Ortega leaving acting behind. But by her own account, one well-timed role kept that from happening and changed everything that followed.
