Jenna Ortega Calls Her Wednesday Costume "Patronizing"
Her most popular role has come with some big drawbacks.
The positive aspects of Jenna Ortega’s star-making role on Wednesday are obvious, but the actor recently opened up about the negatives that fans may not always pick up on. Specifically, she highlighted her wardrobe. The 22-year-old star may be all grown up, but she’s well aware that she’ll continue to be infantilized due to the “schoolgirl” uniform she has to wear for the series.
“I’m doing a show I’m going to be doing for years where I play a schoolgirl,” Ortega said in a May 28 Harper’s Bazaar profile. “But I’m also a young woman.”
Ortega went on to describe how frustrating it is for people to overlook her because of how she’s perceived. “It’s always been really annoying, because you just don’t feel like you’re being taken seriously,” she said. “You know, it’s like how you’re dressed in the schoolgirl costume. … There’s just something about it that’s very patronizing. Also, when you’re short, people are already physically looking down on you.”
While Wednesday Addams’ dark aesthetic has been a welcome rebrand for Ortega — “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.” — she does feel unfairly judged for embracing a new version of herself.
“I was a Disney kid, and the whole thing is being bubbly and kind and overly sweet,” Ortega said, referencing her lead role on the 2016 Disney Channel show Stuck in the Middle. “But girls, if they don’t stay as this perfect image of how they were first introduced to you, then it’s ‘Ah, something’s wrong. She’s changed. She sold her soul.’ But you’re watching these women at the most pivotal times in their lives; they’re experimenting because that’s what you do.”
Being thrust into a new level of fame after the first season of Wednesday also took an upsetting toll on Ortega. “To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person,” she said. “After the pressure, the attention — as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary.”
But making Season 2 has been better, with the star crediting her new role as a producer and the show’s move from gloomy Romania to Dublin, Ireland as some factors in improving her outlook. Season 2 of Wednesday will premiere on Netflix on Aug. 6.
