Who Is The Twenty-Year-Old Star Of Wednesday? Jenna Ortega Had Previously Portrayed A Porn Filmmaker And A Cheeky Seductress

Who is the 20-year-old star of Tim Burton's new Netflix series Wednesday, with more than 12 million followers on Instagram? Where has she starred before, where was she her best self, what makes her special and how did she get into Hollywood? We will answer these questions in the article below.

Although Jenna Ortega appeared in several "harmless" roles and in children's or teenage series, she has shown over time that she is not afraid of bolder, more provocative projects and has no problem getting dirty on the set.

As the young actress with Mexican and Puerto Rican roots revealed in an interview with Cosmopolitan, you will never see her on the silver screen as a cleaner or the daughter of a drug cartel leader, because she does not want to portray characters that support stereotypes against minorities and ethnicities or ridicule or degrade them.

At fifteen, she seduced a thirty-year-old man

She grew up in La Quinta, California in a large family, she has five siblings. It is said that she became interested in acting at the age of six, and since she had very supportive parents, they helped her start her desired career. As writes the Cosmopolitan, it all started when a family friend noticed a video of little Jenna's acting talent, which her mother posted on Facebook. Since he knew the casting agent, they soon arranged a meeting.

When she was only ten years old, her first role came in the series Rob, and then she played in the the episode of the crime series CSI New York and in the soap opera Days of Our Lives. It's incredible that after these small experiences, she got a role in the huge box office hit in 2013, in the Marvel movie Iron Man 3. Although it was a small role (the daughter of the vice president), she starred alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In the same year, another role followed in the successful horror movie Insidious 2. However, she got more space in the TV series Jane the Virgin, Rake or Stuck in the Middle. She became the first "Latina princess" when she voiced Princess Isabel in the animated series Elena of Avalor. So she gained fans especially among the younger audience in front of the TV screens.

It wasn't until 2018 that the first film lead role came in the heartbreaking drama about the circus elephant Saving Flora. The latter guaranteed her a role in the popular Netflix series You, where she showed herself in a completely different light, as confident, cheeky and vivacious Ellie. For example, she had no problem seducing a thirty-year-old at the age of fifteen.

Streams of blood and the first kiss in front of the camera

In 2020, Jenna Ortega has said goodbye to the roles of nice, obedient and exemplary girls. She started a new stage in the role of the fearless, tough and sometimes quite cruel rebel Phoebe in the crazy bloodbath for adults called The Babysitter: Killer Queen, who burns the faces of insidious killers trying to catch her.

Not only did she have her first passionate on-camera kiss with actor Judah Lewis during filming, the three screenwriters also prepared several violent scenes for her, where she had to fight with her bare hands several villains with supernatural abilities and fight for her life.

It didn't take long and the most serious role in her career came. In the emotional film The Fallout (2021), she portrayed a teenager, Vada, who copes with trauma and depression after a school shooting. After the tragedy, her life turns upside down. It was here that Ortega showed that she can handle the most demanding tasks.

Filming porn and lots of shouting

"I want to make independent films that have passion in them... I want to work on projects that challenge me and put me in situations where I may not relate at first, but motivate me to find out for myself what I can do anything,” Ortega told Cosmopolitan. Ti West's slasher called X, full of sex and brutal scenes, was undoubtedly such a project.

In it, she played sound engineer Lorraine, who helps her boyfriend shoot a porn film in a rented barn in the American countryside. In the end, however, he decides not only to sound the film, but also to act in it. However, the owners of the estate decide to punish the young filmmakers for not being honest with them. We can tell you that you will not hear Ortega scream more in any another movie.

She revealed to Complex that it was the most outrageous script (also written by Ti West) she'd ever read, and that's what made her go for it. “I don't think I've ever worked with someone who was so well prepared or so confident in their vision. This is really exciting for an actor. "Just because sometimes you go to a shooting and you don't know what to expect," the actress praised Ti West.

Studio 666 and a fun video interview with Tim Burton

Another horror film featuring Ortega was released this year, and although it was released later than X, the actress shot it earlier. It is a continuation of the cult horror series Scream, in which the central character is a cold-blooded killer in a terrifying mask walking around with a butcher knife. However, the premiere of the film was postponed due to the covid pandemic. As the actress told Collider, it was during the filming of the legendary "Scream" that she agreed with the creators to cooperate in the film X. This year Jenna Ortega appeared in one more horror film - Studio 666, even if only for a while.

Now let's move on to how Ortega got into the currently most watched series on Netflix, Wednesday, which is about the youngest member of the legendary dark Addams family. It all started in New Zealand, where she filmed the already mentioned horror film X. There, the audition took place on Wednesday through a video call with director Tim Burton.

As BuzzFeed writes, the bizarre thing about the whole Zoom call was that Ortega had it right after filming the scene in which she lost her life, so she still had fake blood and sweat on her face, along with the actual laceration she got on set. To make matters worse, she was extremely tired as she hadn't slept in 24 hours. Since Burton is a lover of gore (films like Sweeney Todd or Sleepy Hollow say it all), it was clear that she was the right one for the role of Wednesday. Even in Burton's series, litres of blood were later poured on her head.

She also revealed in a recent interview with Wired that the sight or presence of blood does not bother her. She revealed a bizarre fact from her past. She said that when she was younger, she would just dissect small animals like lizards that she found dead in her backyard. Seems like the role of Wednesday Addams was made specially for her, does it not?