“I think after Wednesday, I’ll probably be off the TV for a while,” Jenna Ortega said on the October 22 episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Horowitz had asked whether the 24-year-old would commit to another franchise. Ortega said she hadn’t had many of those conversations and was comfortable letting future opportunities find her, according to Page Six.
“I want to leave time for new things,” she said, pointing to the years she spent moving between television productions as a child.
She was promoting Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun, which Sony Pictures releases in theaters October 23. Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, the film casts Ortega as an artificial companion to a teenage girl played by Mia Tharia, with Amy Adams as the girl’s mother.
Her Television Career Began Long Before Wednesday Addams
Ortega played the younger version of Gina Rodriguez’s character in Jane the Virgin before leading Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle. As Harley Diaz, she portrayed an inventive middle child in a family of seven children. The comedy ran for three seasons, from 2016 to 2018.
She later joined the second season of Netflix’s You as Ellie Alves. Film roles followed in The Fallout, X and two Scream movies.
Burton’s Quiet Manner Left Her Unsure About ‘Wednesday’
During the same podcast, Ortega recalled worrying that she wasn’t connecting with Tim Burton while making the first season. She had never worked with someone so reserved and interpreted his silence as a sign that something wasn’t working, as Entertainment Weekly reported. Working abroad with the director while still a teenager added to her stress.
Before the November 2022 premiere, Netflix sent her episodes to watch. She managed only about five to ten minutes before feeling embarrassed by her performance. The attention that followed, including strangers recognizing her, was difficult to reconcile with how uncertain she had felt about the work.
Ortega now describes a much more comfortable relationship with the cast and crew. She also reunited with Burton for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in 2024 and became a producer on the second season of Wednesday.
Burton directed eight episodes across the first two seasons. As a producer, Ortega joined discussions about the color of blood and prosthetics and the size of a prop brain. In a separate interview with Netflix Tudum, she described learning about production from him.
She Is Training to Play a Gymnast in ‘Nasty’
Ortega is preparing to play an elite gymnast in Mary Bronstein’s Nasty, with Rose Byrne as her coach. In her October 22 Vogue interview, she recalled fitting training around filming in Dublin, once reaching the gym with stage blood still on her after a late finish.
She first read Isabella Jarosz’s script about two years earlier and has helped assemble the film’s creative team as a producer. The character’s experience of being expected to perform from childhood felt familiar to her.
‘Wednesday’ Season 3 Has Finished Filming
Netflix announced September 30 that production on the third season had wrapped, following filming in the Dublin area. Its update did not provide a premiere date. The streamer has also made no announcement identifying the coming season as the show’s last.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán return as Morticia and Gomez Addams. Winona Ryder joins the cast alongside newcomers Lena Headey, Andrew McCarthy and James Lance, while Eva Green will play Aunt Ophelia, Morticia’s missing sister.
Co-creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have promised more Addams family history and secrets. Netflix has also released a production photograph showing Wednesday and Thing in Paris.