Wednesday star Jenna Ortega: ​“I love things that are disturbing”

In this new-gen version of the classic and darkly funny series about a macabre yet loving family of ghouls, she picks up the baton from Christina Ricci. The October 1998 FACE cover star, most recently seen in Yellowjackets, made the role her own in the 1991 and 1993 movie iterations of the 1960s TV show, which was derived from Charles Addams’s 1930s cartoons.

As Ortega prepares to take her career to scarily accomplished heights with deadpan poise and startlingly perfect plaits (more on that later), we tapped one of her old pals to ask her all about it: Olivia Rodrigo.

Ortega and the biggest teen music star of the last few years first met on the set of Disney Channel comedy series Bizaardvark when they were 16 and 15, respectively. Their paths re-converged this past June at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, with the internet going into meltdown when Ortega presented Rodrigo with the Best Music Documentary prize for Driving Home 2 U (A Sour Film). As they warmly embraced on stage to the sound of Rodrigo’s angsty anthem good 4 u, they gave us a charming peek at their offscreen friendship.

Now that Ortega is on the cusp of Gen Z superstardom and all the glory that comes with it, who could possibly relate better than the 19-year-old fellow Mouse House grad? So we brought them together for an exclusive chat. Although, to be honest, we had no choice – Jenna said she’d feed us to her piranhas if we didn’t deliver… [Please will you untie us now? – Trembling Ed].

Hi Jenna!

Hi Olivia! How are you?

I miss you. I’m good. How are you? Where are you right now?

I just got back to LA. I haven’t been here in a couple of months. It’s very nice.

I saw you were in Paris. Where were you before?

I was in Atlanta for two months.

Oh my God. Wow. Busy, busy girl!

Yeah. What about you? Are you touring right now still?

No. I got off tour. I’m just hanging out and writing. I’m in New York right now.

I wish I’d known you were in New York. I was just there for a week.

I just got here, so it’s OK. We would have missed each other. Happy you’re home! Are you with your family?

Nope. I’m just going around LA, doing things I should have done a while ago, catching up on stuff. I leave again pretty soon.

I had a similar feeling post-tour. On tour, every day is scheduled to the minute – where you are, what you’re doing. Then you finish and you’re like, oh my God, I hate this, I want to be back working. I also liked how you’ve talked about how much you and your parents sacrificed. That was something I witnessed in your life and something that happened in mine, too. Our parents have this camaraderie where my parents love yours.

Yes!

They see themselves in each other. That’s such a real thing and it must be so exciting for them to watch you mature as a young woman and actor. You are now involved in projects that are more mature, ones that you grew up watching. I’m sure that’s really exciting for them. What’s been their reaction to all of this? I assume you’re still super close with them.

Yeah. I feel like they kind of can’t believe it. Not to say that they didn’t believe in me, because obviously they wouldn’t have done six-hour car trips back and forth, four or five times a week, so that I could go to LA and audition, but still. My mom literally said this to me yesterday – she said: “I did not think you were going to be here.” Which is true! That’s what it is. Because we had no connection to Hollywood, it was a random thing. I’m living off of a six-year-old girl’s decisions.

I love that. You’ve been acting for over half your life, which is crazy. Has it been strange to grow up in the public eye? Obviously you’re under a microscope now probably more than ever because of the nature of your career and the success you’ve been having. What’s that been like? What’s your relationship with social media and presenting yourself to the public as an actor?

I’m so awful about social media.

Are you really? I feel like you’re great at it!

No! No, no. I just worked with an actor who said: “If I looked at your Instagram before we worked together and then I met you, I [would have] had no idea you were going to be as cool as you were.” He was like, “That’s an awful representation of you!” Which is true. I think there’s part of me which enjoys that, because I feel like some of the stuff that I’m into or things that make me happy, any time I’ve shared them with people, they look at it weird.

I have to look at my social media as a business platform because I think it’s unhealthy for everyone involved. I’d hate to be married to it. I don’t want to be worried about what I look like on there, or how people perceive me on there. It’s just work! It’s just work posts. I’ll talk about whatever and then people can look at me as an actor, not an influencer, and I can focus on that.

In terms of being in public… I have nowhere near the attention that you do, so I don’t know how you deal with all that pressure. I’m not famous. I will say, I think I’m getting recognised a bit more often, which is really weird. Really weird. It’s kind of incredible how aware you can become of a room suddenly. I never know how to react either. So then I get stuck in full-blown conversations. I don’t know what to do. I salute you. I’ve seen you in public and you’ve always been lovely and perfect and so, so sweet. I need to learn from you.

Have you ever had a funny experience with someone coming up to you in public?

I feel like I’ve had a few. My strangest ones are from our Disney days, where I’d go to the restroom and someone would talk to me from underneath a stall. Or when I was washing my hands and someone grabbed me by the arm and took me to their son’s birthday party. And you don’t have enough of a backbone to say no!

Jenna wears shirt, tie and trousers GUCCI

So wonderful. I’m sure that keeps you humbled and grounded. You have such a good head on your shoulders. You’ve worked so hard to get from there to here, and I get when you say “I’m so fortunate and lucky”, but I think you’ve worked so hard and deserve everything coming your way. What was it like working with Tim Burton?

Working with Tim was incredible. I didn’t really know what to expect and every time I’d spoken to him prior… He’s a man of very few words. You speak to him for five minutes about something that might be a really big deal, but he always goes more in-depth with things on set. I remember on the first day, I was really nervous to continue shooting with him because I didn’t know what it would be like.

We’d been trying to perfect Wednesday’s braids. We were two hours behind because he kept coming over and saying: “No, that’s wrong. No, this isn’t straight enough.” They were shaving the back of my neck to create the perfect line. They were cutting my hair on the day – there were hair and make-up artists cutting new extensions in the trailer as we were speaking and as we were shooting. He took a hairdresser’s comb and brushed my hair. He was taking apart my fringe one [hair] by one until it sat in the place he wanted it to sit. Then he hairsprayed it so that it wouldn’t move.

He was very intense and meticulous. He’d never done TV before and I was like, what’s our schedule going to look like? What scenes are getting pushed to tomorrow? After we established the look – which was also very exciting to see him do, because he’s such a visionary – he refused to shoot anything that didn’t satisfy that itch that he had in his brain. It’s very insightful to see. He always did it kindly. He knew everyone’s names, [but] he was very quiet and [kept] to himself. He excused himself if he felt he was in the way.

Jenna wears dress and belt VAQUERA

Is there anything that scares you?

Confronting myself.

Ha! For real.

Abandonment. Never finding real love. I’m not really scared of death or anything like that. I’m a very paranoid person. Real talk, my biggest fear is losing someone very close to me. Every time I end a phone call with someone I love, I have to say “I love you”, I have to text them and make sure they’re OK and safe. That’s a really big fear of mine.

Of course. And what draws you towards darker projects?

I think we find each other. There’s some invisible string that’s connected to serial killers, monsters, creatures and myself. No matter where I go. I feel like it’s something that’s always been attractive to me since I was younger, something I was always into. It’s what feels right to me and it tends to be the scripts I’m into. I love things that are a bit off-putting, things when the closer you look, really aren’t that pretty. I love things that are disturbing. They’re interesting and there are so many routes and variations of storytelling that you can do with stuff like that. Also, to play a character that is always in a victim position, it’s a nice challenge for me to give them some personality that makes them different from one another.

I don’t want my characters to be all the same, but if they’re in similar situations it’s always so interesting seeing how this person will take it rather than another. They’re also some of my favourite projects to watch. Horror films are what got me out of being a scaredy cat. It’s typically the other way around, but I fell in love with the craft, the passion that goes behind it. You don’t need a lot of money to make a good horror or thriller film. It’s pure adrenaline that you’re creating for an audience. Everyone who’s there is excited and ready to be there. After working on enough sets, they’re always somewhere I’m going to want to be because the passion and dedication on set is unparalleled. They’re always a good time.