Jenna Ortega would go ‘all day without eating or drinking’ as a kid on set to ‘not be in the way’
Jenna Ortega would go ‘all day without eating or drinking’ as a kid on set to ‘not be in the way’
Wesley StenzelTue, August 11, 2026 at 7:30 PM UTC
0
Jenna Ortega in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 24, 2026Credit: Dia Dipasupil/GettyKey points -
Jenna Ortega began her career as a child star.
The actress said that she went to extreme lengths to “not be in the way” on set as a kid.
“I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on,” she remembered.
Jenna Ortega went to extreme measures to stay on everyone’s good side as a child actor.
The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star had a robust career as a child star before becoming a household name with Wednesday, and said that she made extensive efforts to keep everyone happy on set.
During an interview with Esquire, Ortega wracked her brain trying to remember a rookie mistake that she made on her first set, and couldn’t come up with anything. “I really had it going for me as a child ‘cause I can’t think of one mistake I made,” she said. “Is that a terrible thing to say? 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.”
Ortega explained that she often avoided asking for anything on set because she wanted to stay in everyone’s good graces. “I wasn’t asking for a sip of water,” she said. “I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”
She reflected, “Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself.”
Jenna Ortega in Los Angeles on May 22, 2026; Jenna Ortega in West Hollywood, Calif., on Feb. 3, 2016Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage; JB Lacroix/WireImage
Earlier in the interview, Ortega was asked if she wanted to set the record straight about any stereotypes about child stars.
“Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true? And do with that what you will,” she said.
As a young star, Ortega headlined Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle and portrayed a young version of Gina Rodriguez’s protagonist on Jane the Virgin. She also appeared in supporting roles in Iron Man 3, Insidious 2, Days of Our Lives, and CSI: NY.
Advertisement
Ortega is somewhat perplexed by the way that her career has taken off. “I was 7 years old when I said I wanted to do this,” she said. “My parents laughed at me when I told them that I wanted to do it, and then that was kind of the root of everything. The motivation. And I never really stopped, because I’m very stubborn. And then I never questioned it.”
The Death of a Unicorn star cited another child actor as the reason she became interested in screen acting: Dakota Fanning. “As a young girl, to see a young girl with so much, it felt like wisdom, like she had lived and walked this planet many times before… she kind of taught me what an actor even was when I was a kid,” she remembered.
Ortega will next appear in Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun, an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 sci-fi novel about an android tasked with befriending a teenage girl.
Jenna Ortega in Los Angeles on March 9, 2016Credit: Barry King/Getty
The actress said that the biggest challenge of the Klara process was “not really having any idea of what it was gonna look like” when the film was complete.
“I think when you speak of these sci-fi realms and worlds and you’re working with an auteur like Taika Waititi, you can assume and you can guess, but also the book is really wonderful in the way that it’s speaking on these big things, but it’s very nuanced,” she said. “So it wasn’t until you really got onto the set and were immersed in the world that you had an understanding. It was definitely the most, ‘Oo, okay, what am I stepping into here?’”
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
Ortega will also appear in J.J. Abrams’ The Great Beyond alongside Glen Powell. “That’s a movie star,” she said of the Running Man actor. “I felt like working with him, it was the most movie experience I think I’ve had on a set. Easy to shoot with, very technical. A lot of energy, and just so nice, so unbelievably nice to everyone.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
