Jenna Ortega Struggles with Fame from ‘Wednesday’ Role as Netflix Star

The Overwhelming Success of Wednesday

Who says fame brings happiness? In a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Jenna Ortega revealed just the opposite! She described herself as “an unhappy person” following the global success of Wednesday, a phenomenon that catapulted her acting career to new heights.

The first season became the most-watched English-language series on the platform, with 252.1 million views, far surpassing Stranger Things 4, which had 140 million.

“To be totally honest, after the series and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person,” Ortega said. “The pressure, the attention – for someone quite introverted, it was so intense and scary.”

The Burden of Celebrity

Although she has been acting since childhood, Jenna Ortega became an overnight sensation. Unsurprisingly, this popularity made her a target on social media, where every move she made and her subsequent career choices were scrutinized and criticized. The actress expressed feeling “incredibly misunderstood” at the height of her fame. “It feels like harassment is very much in style right now,” she explained.

Being the subject of rumors was an eye-opener.

Jenna Ortega describes the overwhelming success of Wednesday as a double-edged sword. Among the benefits, she was able to explore new passions, such as playing the cello, and developed a stronger taste for gothic culture. However, there were also downsides: “I’m playing in a series that I will do for years, where I portray a schoolgirl. But I, I am a young woman.”

Jenna Ortega is also aware that her role in Wednesday might limit the industry’s perception of her acting range, which is why she quickly embraced several eclectic films at the end of the first season. These include Death of a Unicorn, Hurry Up Tomorrow with The Weeknd, Klara and the Sun by Taika Waititi, and The Gallerist with Natalie Portman. As a former child star who is aiming to be taken seriously as an adult actress, she admits, “It simply doesn’t feel like you’re taken seriously.”

A Delicate Balance

She adds about her schoolgirl costume: “There’s something very condescending about being dressed like that. And then, when you are small, people already look down on you physically… And girls, if they don’t fit the perfect image that was assigned to them from the start, then it’s ‘Ah, something is wrong. She’s changed. She’s sold her soul.’ But we’re looking at these women at a pivotal time in their lives, they’re experimenting because that’s what you do.”

Despite everything, Ortega says she’s “very grateful” for the global fanbase she has gained thanks to the series. Thus, she’s striving to build a career that is true both to her fans and her own desires.

“I want to be able to give back to them, but I also want to do things that nourish me creatively,” she explains. “So it’s finding a balance between films that might interest them and others that interest me. I want roles that are older, bolder, and different. And then, I want to be able to line up all my roles and see something different in each one of them.”

Season 2 of Wednesday will be released in two parts on Netflix, from August 6 to September 3.