Jenna Ortega might now be one of the biggest stars of the big and small screen, but she almost walked away from acting entirely.
“I didn’t know what else I was going to do,” Ortega said on the Big Bro with Kid Cudi podcast. “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,” she added. “I was starting high school, and, you know, ‘it was a good run’ sort of thing. We had talked about it for a few months, 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, and then I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go.'”
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Ortega played Ellie Alves in You, a teenage girl whom Joe Goldberg, the Netflix show’s serial killer protagonist, befriends. After You, Ortega went on to star as Tara in Scream 5 and Scream 6, as well as Astrid Deetz in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, and she now plays the title role in Netflix’s Addams Family adaptation Wednesday.
Wednesday season 3 doesn’t have a release date yet, but Netflix has confirmed it’s officially happening. Season 1 is the streamer’s biggest English-language show ever.
While you wait for Wednesday, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming TV shows to fill out your watchlist.
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