Jenna Ortega reveals she went all day without 'eating or drinking' as a child actor
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Jenna Ortega is reflecting on the career she has built since beginning as a child actor, opening up about the pressure she put on herself to keep everyone happy on set and the lessons she learned along the way.
As she enters a new phase of her career, Ortega revealed that years of trial and error have helped her better understand herself, what she wants from the world, and the kinds of projects she wants to pursue.
Jenna Ortega reflects on child actor struggles
Ortega had a successful career as a child star before becoming a household name with 'Wednesday', appearing in Disney Channel’s 'Stuck in the Middle' and portraying a younger version of Gina Rodriguez’s protagonist on 'Jane the Virgin'.
She also had supporting roles in 'Iron Man 3', 'Insidious 2', 'Days of Our Lives', and 'CSI: NY'. During an interview with Esquire, Ortega struggled to recall a rookie mistake from her first set. “I really had it going for me as a child ‘cause I can’t think of one mistake I made,” she said.
She continued, “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.”
She revealed that she often avoided asking for basic necessities because she wanted to remain in everyone’s good graces. “I wasn’t asking for a sip of water,” she said, adding, “I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”
Reflecting on that period, Ortega added, “Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself.” When asked about stereotypes surrounding child stars, she responded, “Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true? And do with that what you will.”
Ortega also credited Dakota Fanning with inspiring her interest in screen acting.
“As a young girl, to see a young girl with so much, it felt like wisdom, like she had lived and walked this planet many times before… she kind of taught me what an actor even was when I was a kid,” she remembered.
Jenna Ortega reveals lessons from Hollywood
Looking back at her career, Ortega said she has no regrets despite some projects receiving mixed responses.
Her work includes the acclaimed 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' and roles in two recent 'Scream' movies, while 2025’s 'Hurry Up Tomorrow', a companion film to The Weeknd’s album of the same name, was critically panned.
“One hundred percent, yeah. I don’t know if I can ever categorize anything as a mistake. Good or bad, you’re going to learn from it,” she said, adding, “I’ve gotten such a better understanding of who I am as a person and what I want from the world."
She further stated, “I wouldn’t have been able to get that understanding of my position had I not gone through phases of trial and error.”
Ortega will next appear in Taika Waititi’s 'Klara and the Sun', based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 sci-fi novel about an android tasked with befriending a teenage girl.
She described the biggest challenge as “not really having any idea of what it was gonna look like” when completed, explaining that the film’s world only became clear once she was on set and immersed in it.
She will also appear in JJ Abrams’ 'The Great Beyond' alongside Glen Powell. Describing Powell, she called him “a movie star” and praised him as “Easy to shoot with, very technical. A lot of energy, and just so nice, so unbelievably nice to everyone.”
