Jenna Ortega opens up about negative impact of having to wear schoolgirl costume
Jenna Ortega has spoken about the 'very patronising' schoolgirl costume she wears in her starring role as Wednesday Addams in the popular Netflix show.
The 22-year-old actor, who has also featured in Beetlejuice 2 and fellow Netflix series You, has established herself as one of the most recognisable faces in TV and film, for the younger generations at least.
Ortega, who also had a brief cameo in a Marvel film, made her debut as the morbid and macabre Wednesday Addams in Netflix's Wednesday back in 2022 and nearly three years on, fans are now eagerly waiting for season two to drop.
Despite the classic character being just six-years-old in the original TV series and between 12-13 in other film portrayals, Ortega's version is still in high school and is thought to be around 16.
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But despite this, the Death of a Unicorn star has criticised the costume choices from the show, suggesting that she doesn't feel she will be taken seriously as an actress, especially as she is just 5 foot 1.
She told Harper's Bazaar: "It’s always been really annoying, because you just don’t feel like you’re being taken seriously. You know, it’s like how you’re dressed in the schoolgirl costume... There’s just something about it that’s very patronising.
"Also, when you’re short, people are already physically looking down on you.”
Although we're not at the levels of Grease where we had people in their mid 30s playing high school kids (before the modern day skincare routines it must be added) Ortega is 22 now and will be wary that she cannot play a schoolgirl forever.
She added: “I’m doing a show I’m going to be doing for years where I play a schoolgirl. But I’m also a young woman.”
The 22-year-old also spoke honestly about the gender divide as a young celebrity, suggesting that boys have it far easier when it comes to growing up in the public eye.
She said: “But girls, if they don’t stay as this perfect image of how they were first introduced to you, then it’s ‘Ah, something’s wrong. She’s changed. She sold her soul.
"But you’re watching these women at the most pivotal times in their lives; they’re experimenting because that’s what you do.”
Having grown up as a kid on the Disney Channel, she's seemingly faced backlash for her change in style, which seems to identify her as the ideal candidate to play Wednesday in fairness.
She concluded: “I definitely feel like I have a bit more Gothic taste than I did when I was a teenager.
“I’ve always been into dark things or been fascinated by them, but I was a Disney kid, and the whole thing is being bubbly and kind and overly sweet.”
While Ortega hasn't exactly been short of work in the years since Wednesday first dropped, also starring in a thriller alongside Barry Keoghan and The Weeknd, it seems as if she wants to evolve as an actress, and that might mean leaving the schoolgirl roles behind her.
Anyway, Wednesday season two drops on Netflix in August, with season three production reportedly set to begin in November of this year.
Topics: Jenna Ortega, Netflix, TV, Film
James Moorhouse