Jenna Ortega almost “called it quits” in acting before landing her role in You.
The 23-year-old star, who got started on children’s TV shows like Richie Rich and Stuck In The Middle, considered walking away from her career on screen before she was cast as Ellie Alves in the second season of Netflix thriller You.
She told Kid Cudi’s Big Bro podcast: “I didn’t know what else I was gonna do. I’ve never really considered anything else, more so recently, just out of sake of curiosity and wanting another life experience.
“But when I was a teenager, I’d gotten off a children’s show, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn’t know who I was. It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to. I was starting high school, and, ‘it was a good run’ sort of thing.”
Jenna got as far as spending “a few months” chatting about the situation with her team, but You was enough to change her mind.
She recalled: “We had talked about it for a few months with my team.
“And then, I think I booked that show You, and then I went on that set, and I loved it and had the best time. I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go.'”
Since then, Jenna has landed roles in the likes of X, Scream VI, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as well as Netflix hit Wednesday.
However, last year she admitted after playing Wednesday Addams in the streaming juggernaut she struggled with “the attention”.
She told Harper’s Bazaar magazine: “To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person. After the pressure, the attention – as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary.”
And she previously admitted she was still adjusting to her own fame and success.
She told MTV: “It’s definitely an adjustment.”
Jenna relished being able to lean on Winona Ryder – her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice co-star – for some advice about navigating the potential pitfalls of fame.
She explained: “I’m very grateful to be where I am and she had kind of a similar thing to say. It was just so nice to speak to someone who actually understood me.”
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