Jenna Ortega stunned audiences with her latest performance in The Fallout and is likely well on her way to becoming Hollywood’s next legend. The 19-year-old got her start with minor roles in Iron Man 3, CSI, and Insidious: Chapter 2, racking up a number of acting credits that led to her first big role in Jane the Virgin and grew into further mainstream roles, including Ellie Alves in Netflix’s You and Phoebe in The Babysitter: Killer Queen. Along with her The Fallout costar, Dance Moms’ Maddie Zeigler, Ortega has proven to be an acting powerhouse, already working on what is sure to be her next hit: Wednesday Addams in Tim Burton’s Upcoming series Wednesday.
With a spot on PopSugar’s 2020 “20 under 20” list and a growing number of nominations under her belt, Jenna Ortega appears to be set on the path to becoming a household name. Whether you’re a regular viewer of her Instagram feed or you just happened to stumble upon one of her projects, here’s everything you need to know about Gen Z’s new leading lady, Jenna Ortega, from where she’s from to who her parents are, and what’s up next for her.
Jenna Ortega is from Coachella Valley, California.
According to IMDB, Ortega was born in Coachella Valley, CA, on the 27th of September, 2002. She’s been acting for ten years, starting at the age of nine.
Her father is One Hundred percent Mexican, & her mother is Mexican and Puerto Rican.
Ortega shared with PopSugar that she’s 75% Mexican and 25% Puerto Rican, an identity that she wears proudly. Because her father’s family has lived in California for generations, the Spanish language died out before he was born. But her great-grandmother taught her mother Spanish, so she grew up in a bilingual household with her five siblings.
Her parents have enforced the importance of speaking Spanish as well as preserving her Hispanic heritage through tradition and food. “My mom makes the best Mexican food, it’s my favorite,” she says with pride in a 2016 Disney Channel short where she introduces her family and talks about Hispanic heritage.
Her big break was as Young Jane in Jane the Virgin but SHE’S more recently been seen in You and several hit films.
Ortega’s most recognizable role thus far is probably as the younger version of Gina Rodriguez’s character, Jane Villaneuva, on Jane the Virgin. While it wasn’t her first role, she spent five years on the series, appearing in 30 episodes. She views Rodriguez as a role model, and shared in an exclusive with Talk Nerdy With Us, “She has influenced me to spread more love on social media, to stop caring about what people think, to be real with your acting/follow your instinct, and to stand up for what I think is right.”
More recently, she played Ellie Alves in Netflix’s You, starred in The Fallout, and appeared in Scream.
She recently received critical acclaim for her role in The Fallout.
Her emotionally heavy role as Vada in The Fallout has received well-deserved recognition from a variety of sources. “Ortega nails her role as a levelheaded teen who, nevertheless, is still a teen, reeling from an unthinkable event on top of the usual growing pains,” Claire Shaffer wrote for The New York Times. “Her impulsive, bizarre and, yes, even funny outbursts as she tries to reckon with the shooting paint a grounded and compassionate picture of adolescent grief.”
She recently discussed her journey with the role of Vada with InStyle, sharing her intimidation due to the intensity of the story. “I was definitely intimidated. One, because fortunately [a school shooting is] not an experience I share,” she said to InStyle. “Although it is a very, very real concern for my generation, and even something that I experienced going to school, public school, going on lockdown, and situations like that.” She was concerned to overstep and put herself into somebody else’s story without adequately understanding the trauma of the situation. “But the way that it was pitched to me was … an apology note to my generation and an understanding that, although this is incredibly painful, and something that [Gen Z] is dealing with and shouldn’t have to deal with, you’re not alone.”
Next up: Wednesday Addams.
For his TV directorial debut, Tim Burton’s Wednesday has found the titular character in none other than Ortega for the Addams Family spinoff. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ortega’s role will shine a light on Wednesday’s time as a teenager. “We’ve never seen Wednesday Addams as a teenage girl, so some of her harsh mannerisms may come off as hilarious when she’s younger, but as you get older, how much of that can you get away with?” Ortega told THR. “I’ve never felt so much pressure on a job, and I’m trying to keep my cool.”
According to Hollywood Life, the show is set to premiere on Netflix sometime in 2022, but the release date has yet to be revealed.