Jenna Ortega is opening up about the hidden cost of working young. In a recent interview with Esquire, the “Wednesday” star revealed that as a child actor she would go entire days without asking for food or water so she wouldn’t be “in the way of anybody” on set.
“I really had it going for me as a child ‘cause I can’t think of one mistake I made,” Ortega 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.” Part of that game face, she explained, was never asking for anything.
“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.” — Jenna Ortega
The Pressure of the “Game Face”
Ortega acknowledged the toll that discipline took on her. “Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself,” she said. She got her break headlining the Disney Channel series “Stuck in the Middle,” which debuted in 2016 when she was just 13, and her early credits span “Richie Rich,” “Jane the Virgin,” “You” and “Elena of Avalor.”
Asked about the stigmas surrounding child stars, Ortega was bluntly honest. “Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true?” she said, adding that the motivation to act was sparked when she was 7. “I was 7 years old when I said I wanted to do this. 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.”
Why It Matters
Ortega’s candor adds a rare, first-person layer to the ongoing conversation about child actors — the same conversation that has fueled a wave of documentaries and memoir-style reckonings across Hollywood. She’s one of the few stars of her generation willing to admit the parts of early fame that weren’t fun. As she pivots into darker, more adult roles with “Wednesday” and beyond, her honesty about the “game face” she wore as a kid only makes the person behind it easier to root for.
