Jenna Ortega Gets Candid About Her Explosive Rise to Fame After “Wednesday” Season 1
At just 22, Jenna Ortega has made a massive leap — from scrappy Disney child actress to global star — thanks in large part to her breakout role as Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s “Wednesday”. But while the fame came fast, Ortega’s journey has been anything but easy.
Jenna Ortega Reflects On Working In Early Days
In a candid conversation with The Weeknd, 35, Ortega opened up about the emotional toll of fame and how drastically her life changed after “Wednesday” debuted. When asked if she ever misses the anonymity she once had, she didn’t hesitate: “Oh, most definitely.”
“I mean, that was just a few years ago,” she explained. “I’d done some shows and was working in film, but it wasn’t until that show — the day of the week Wednesday — that just catapulted everything.”
Though she calls the role a dream come true, Ortega admits there was something special about the early days of her career — when everything was still uncertain. “As grateful as I am, and it was a dream role, it was so nice to have had way less pressure. I love the hustle. There’s something about the actor’s come-up and struggle that I really enjoyed.”
That struggle meant long days, self-doubt, and living out of her car during audition seasons. “Sleeping in the cars, driving all around LA for auditions, and waiting for weeks, feeling sick to my stomach that I wasn’t going to get the job I really wanted,” she recalled. “The adrenaline rush of it all was so exciting.”
Jenna Ortega on Hollywood Pressure
But with success comes pressure — and it’s something she feels constantly. “I don’t know if it’s common, or if you can relate to this, but it kind of feels like you’re perpetually in this loop of anxiety,” she told The Weeknd. “I hold so much more pressure and weight in my body than I ever did, and I think it’s just kind of the expectation of it all.”
Despite the weight that fame brings, Ortega remains grounded. She’s now stepping into producing, continuing her work with Tim Burton on “Beetlejuice 2”, and is already setting her sights on directing. With a passion for storytelling and a growing desire to shape projects from behind the camera, Ortega is carving out space for herself not just as an actress, but as a creative force in Hollywood.
And while the stakes may be higher now, she hasn’t lost sight of what made her fall in love with acting in the first place: the hustle, the heart, and the thrill of the climb.
