At age 23, Jenna Ortega has already starred in an impressive range of TV shows and movies, including Wednesday, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Scream, to name just a few.
But Jenna’s acting career actually began over a decade ago, with the star appearing in several projects throughout her childhood — from Iron Man 3 at age 9 to the Disney series Stuck in the Middle at age 13.
A few years ago, Jenna opened up about how difficult it was for her to go to acting auditions as a child, given how busy her mom — a full-time ER nurse with five other children — was.
Noting that her mom would drive her to Los Angeles from the Coachella Valley “four to five times a week,” Jenna recalled during a 2022 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, “It was like a six, seven-hour round trip, LA and back, for auditions.”
More recently, Jenna opened up about her mixed feelings toward child acting. Speaking with the New York Times in 2024, she said, “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. It’s completely changed my way of thinking and going about life, and when I speak to other child actors, I can pick them out instantly because we all have that — it’s just very specific, like some secret little language or something that we all share,” she continued.
“Children aren’t supposed to be working like that. They are supposed to be climbing trees and drawing and going to school. 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,” she added.
Now, in a new interview with Esquire, Jenna has once again shed light on her child acting experience.
While answering quick-fire questions, Jenna was asked to share a “rookie mistake” she made on her first set during the Aug. 11 interview.
She replied, “As a child, I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on. 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, was not actually looking after myself.”
Jenna’s response has sparked heartbreaking discourse around the pressures young stars can face behind the scenes. “A child is not supposed to look after themselves,” one person said. “This is really sad. She should not starve herself cause she didn’t wanna be in anyone’s way,” another user wrote.
“Heartbreaking. It bothers me that this is such a common experience for child stars. It's such a failure that the people around them aren't making sure they're good, these are kids and it's the bare minimum to do that for them,” someone wrote, while another user added, “Incredibly sad.”
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