Jena Ortega is not new to the acting scene; she is the recipient of various accolades, including an Imagen Award for her role in the series Stuck in the Middle. She has been working in the TV and film industry for a decade. Her career started when she played a role as a guest star in the 2012 series Rob with Rob Schneider at the age of 10 years.

She just turned 20 years old but has been steadily working in Hollywood for the last decade. Her career has progressed to various films and her longest was her voice role as Princess Isabel on Elena of Avalor from 2016 to 2020. This was the first show for Disney to have a Latin princess making her a star as a representation in the Latina community.

The actress’s latest project is the starring role in Tim Burton’s Wednesday, The Addams Family spin-off series on Netflix.  From the actor’s latest works, she evidently gravitates toward darker scripts and she once revealed that she is the biggest fan of the sci-fi horror series stranger things. She expressly explained that she has a love for things that are a bit off-putting, things when the closer you look, really are not that pretty, things that are disturbing. She also added that there is some invisible string that is connected to serial killers, monsters, creatures, and myself. No matter where she goes. Ortega was also in the scary film Scream and The Babysitter: Killer Queen. All these films have given her the spotlight needed for public recognition.

I do not know about you but I am not a fan of horror series or movies. I do not like the feeling of being scared, but the actress blew my mind when she played the leading role of Wednesday Addams. In addition, it is not exactly as bloody as other horror series. It seemed effortless and easy for the actress to take on the role who is cold, gloomy, and emotionless. The Netflix series is essentially a part horror story and part murder mystery with monsters, doom, and gloom.

The first season features Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy, a freak among freaks, and how she uses her wit and brains to uncover the killing spree that has terrorized the local town and solve the murder mystery her parents hid from her 25 years ago. She bases her investigations on her gut feeling that there’s “something wrong” with Nevermore and her visions combined with the help from her friends. The show had 341.2 million hours of viewing in the first week of its release, beating Stranger Things 4’s 335 million hours.

Jenna Ortega is perfect in the title role and keeps you glued to the screen. While watching the series, I found myself laughing and enjoying Wednesday. Everyone is colorful except Wednesday and her family who are unemotional and pale just like the dead making her stand out in school. There was a scene where her friends surprised her for her birthday but instead of thanking them and enjoying the cake, she focuses on the writing of the building and continues her investigations. You have to be cold to not care, as if that is not weird enough she gets a gift of dead squirrels from her mother and father.

The other actors execute strong performances that keep you hooked to the very end. It is honestly one of the easiest, fun-to-watch series as time flew by too fast, and now I cannot wait for the next episodes. I was somewhat worried that it would be the cliché dark series, teen mystery and school drama. The season ends with a cliffhanger and mind-blowing shocking reveals. It is a definite must-watch.

In a recent interview, she stated that she is a weirdo after admitting she used to perform autopsies on little animals when she was younger. Yikes! I do not know about you but this is shocking, as not many would admit to being a weirdo. The autopsies she performed were on little animals like little lizards. Although they were dead, it was a bit scary.

To prepare for the role she had to learn many new skills such as fencing, canoeing, archery, German and twice-weekly cello lessons. It is quite important for actors and actresses to learn more about their roles through research, particularly the character’s physicality, speech, or persona. Where skills are involved, they must learn them as well. I sometimes hear actors go through hell when auditioning for a character they play. Some have gone to extremes like getting into a coffin, intense boot camping training, sleeping inside a dead animal’s carcass, spending time in jail and putting rocks in the shoe.

Jenna was lucky her role needed a bit of time training, learning a new language and learning the cello there are actors who have been known to take their roles to a whole new level. Either way preparing for a movie role does not always come easy. Jenna’s hardest part was learning how to play the cello. In the show, she plays it beautifully but behind the scenes, she has been struggling. She confessed that at one point she lost a few hairs in the end.

 

When Jenna was first auditioning for Wednesday, she was covered in fake blood and the other was real while she was with Tim Burton. The real blood was a result of a cut on her chin due to a prosthetic she wore. If I was Tim Burton, I would have been scared a bit but he just laughed. The actress is really talented and who knows what the future holds for her. I can see myself becoming a big fan after the release of this giant hit. There are chances for the series to come back for the season as hinted in the season finale.

Planning a trip to Paris ? Get ready !


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