Jenna Ortega Turns Her Back on Netflix and ‘Wednesday,’ Prefers Fashion Ads
Jenna Ortega is one of the hottest young actors in film and television right now, but she says she actually prefers doing ads for fashion lines than starring in the hit Netflix series Wednesday.
Like most young stars of her generation, Jenna Ortega has wasted no time in developing her image as a burgeoning young mogul. Like her contemporary Millie Bobby Brown, she is a published author, having published a book of essays and quotes titled It’s All Love: Reflections for Your Heart & Soul. Like Zendaya and Demi Lovato, she is a former Disney star, having starred in the TV shows Stuck in the Middle and Elena and the Secret of Avalor. Like Mia Goth, she has fully cemented a reputation as a killer queen in horror movies like Scream (2022), American Carnage (2022), and Scream VI (2023). Like most of those people, she’s even been on Saturday Night Live.
Most audiences will know her best as the newest incarnation of Wednesday Addams, the teenager whose own father says “perpetually exudes an aura of half-dead lethargy.” Jenna Ortega began portraying a new version of the beloved member of the Addams Family in 2022 when the Tim Burton series Wednesday began streaming on Netflix.
This particular take on the Addams Family sees Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) being sent off to a boarding school for strange and magical children, Nevermore Academy. Once there, she almost immediately finds herself investigating a series of unusual deaths, discovering her own psychic abilities, and clashing with authority figures played by Christina Ricci (a former Addams herself) and Gwendoline Christie.
The series was an immediate hit with Netflix audiences, and season 2 is eagerly awaited, especially after the months-long SAG-AFTRA strike that shut down virtually all Hollywood productions.
However, it often does not seem like Jenna Ortega has quite the enthusiasm for her Netflix role as the rest of us. In the past, she has publically criticized the writing of the show and claimed to have rewritten her own dialogue as Wednesday Addams. More recently, she expressed that she personally does not even watch her own show
It should not be all that surprising, then, that Jenna Ortega recently revealed to Elle Canada that her current gig as one of the new faces of fashion house Dior was actually a lot more fun than filming TV shows and movies. Ortega said of her experience in fashion shoots and campaigns, “You rarely have to worry about lines, and the concepts are always enigmatic and creative. It’s almost strictly play, so it’s a lot of fun.”
Hopefully, Jenna Ortega does have some level of fun acting, because she is set to star in both Wednesday season 2 and the long-awaited Beetlejuice 2 alongside Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, and, rumor has it, Johnny Depp.
