Wednesday’s Season 2 is coming out in September, three years after Season 1 came out. Season 1 was a HUGE success, one of the most successful Netflix shows of all time. It’s actually kind of crazy that it took three years to get a second season, actually. Anyway, Jenna Ortega is back in promotional mode and she’s starting to reach that level of youthful stardom where she just lives inside her own ass. I’m saying that with sympathy – I feel for her, and if I was being interviewed endlessly in my late teens and early 20s, I would have sounded like a self-absorbed a–hole too. We all would have, let’s be honest. Ortega doesn’t really know who she is and she’s just trying to survive this period of her life, and her interviews are largely a reflection of that: a young actress in survival mode, a young woman without a lot of real-life experience. Some highlights from her Harper’s Bazaar interview:
Overnight fame with ‘Wednesday’: “I was so stunned that I didn’t really process it. I still haven’t. We used to live in villages and meet maybe 300 people in our lifetimes, and now we can travel all over the world and meet way too many people, and way too many people can be familiar with you.” She tried different things to reduce her exposure. She bought a flip phone. (“I had a really hard time with social media,” she says. “It was really turning me off.”)
An existential child: “I was always very existential as a kid. The world was always ending. I was worrying about things way earlier than I needed to. My work felt like the safe place. When I wasn’t on set, I had a really, really hard time.”
Bullies are having a moment: “I feel like being a bully is very popular right now. Having been on the wrong side of the rumor mill was incredibly eye-opening.”
She’s befriended Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder, and Natasha Lyonne. “It’s been so beneficial and so cozy. They’ve seen it all, and, honestly, during a much darker time in Hollywood. We’ve all got this jaded way about us that I don’t think we’d have if we hadn’t started so young and had so many brutal realizations and experiences. But they turned out all right.”
She doesn’t believe wisdom only comes with age: “It really irks me when people say, ‘Oh, you don’t understand. You’re so young.’ Because if you’re not open to the experiences that you’re having and you’re not willing to learn from your mistakes or reflect on your decisions, you’re not going to grow at all. You’re choosing to be a bystander.”
She wasn’t in a great place after the first season of Wednesday. “To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person. After the pressure, the attention—as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary.”
Wednesday did rub off on her: “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. 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.”
“It really irks me when people say, ‘Oh, you don’t understand. You’re so young.’” Honey, you ARE young and inexperienced! I understand how that comes across as patronizing, but I’d be willing to bet that people are saying that to her after she reveals that, oh right, she has no idea how things work and she’ll eventually learn through experience! This is fascinating to me too: “I feel like being a bully is very popular right now.” Is that true for Gen Z? Are we in a Bully Era? From the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem that way. Anyway, I’m glad she’s befriending older actresses who were child stars. I hope she listens to their stories and takes their advice.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of Bazaar.
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- Lionsgate presents New York premiere of ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ at AMC Lincoln Square Featuring: Jenna Ortega Where: New York, New York, United States When: 13 May 2025 Credit: Marion Curtis/Starpix for Lionsgate/INSTARimages
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- Lionsgate presents New York premiere after party of ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ at Boom @ The Standard Featuring: Jenna Ortega Where: New York, New York, United States When: 13 May 2025 Credit: Marion Curtis/Starpix for Lionsgate/INSTARimages
“You knew when you were 13??”
“Honey, when i was 13 i knew everything. Senility set in sometime after that.”
– Harvey Firestein’s Arnold in Torch Song Trilogy- about being gay.
“When i was 30 i thought i knew a lot, when i was 40 i thought i knew more. When i was 50 i realized i didn’t know anything.”
– my grandmother, Jean.
She said it to me when i was young, and i never, ever forgot it. Such an interesting perspective from her to me in my 20s.
I’m over 50 now.
But teen me- definitely knew everything.
For the love of god I wish people would stop prefacing everything with “I feel.” No one cares how you feel. Just state your opinion. Unless you genuinely feel something (I’m feeling sick) no need to say “I feel being a bully is popular” (Pet peeve! Had an articling student say to me once “I feel like what the Supreme Court is saying is….” I had to excuse myself and scream into the void after that gem….)
Maybe she is referring to the country overall…I mean the supreme bully is at the helm…and MAGA morons get more aggressive all the time with using racial slurs etc…
I think you’re right – Look at Senator Mike Lee showing his ass (mocking those murdered in MN). Congresswoman Joni Ernst mocking people afraid of losing Medicaid (“We all die” as she strolls through cemetery). Look at Trump! Look at ICE!
That’s exactly what she’s talking about.
RE Gen Z – I’m pretty impressed with how kind and talented many of this generation are – OK – I may have a skewed view because of my niece + nephew and their amazing friends.
Hmm…I think we all have a self-absorbed period as young people, for sure, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Jenna Ortega sounds like she’s up her own ass in this interview (from this snippet…maybe it gets worse, I have no idea). She actually makes some good points, though I would hazard she should read more about existentialism before labeling her childhood mental health as “existential.” And as an elder millennial with waaay too much awareness of what the kids are doing on these internet streets, I would say that Gen Z has about as much of a problem with bullying and meanness as every generation has ever had. It’s just that the cruel perspectives and voices of a minority of people online have incredibly outsized platforms. It can make it seem like the world is getting crueler, when it’s probably always been more or less this way.
Every few months I stumble on and re-watch this Hollywood Reporter round-table from 2 years ago with Jenna + Elle Fanning + Ayo Edeberi + Devery Jacobs (Reservation Dogs) + Sheryl Lee Ralph + Natasha Lyonne.
These impressive young women really hold their own with old-timers Sheryl Lee + Natasha Lyonne.
It’s fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck3OUiRrJ0I&t=2s
PS – Cannot recommend “Reservation Dogs” enough! (on Hulu)
She must be referring to Drumpf. 5 months in and he is categorically dismantling the entire country in the name of his anti-American Nazi ideas or the ideas of his handlers. More and more frightening.