The actress said that her stature also doesn’t help her reputation: “When you’re short, people are already physically looking down on you.”


Wednesday

made

Jenna Ortega

a household name, but some elements of her teenage character are tough to shake.

The
Scream
actress, 22, discussed her complicated feelings toward the fame that has come with her Netflix series in an interview with

Harper’s Bazaar

.

“To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person,” Ortega said. “After the pressure, the attention — as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary.”

Ortega’s friend and
The Gallerist
costar,

Natalie Portman

, told the outlet that she’s felt a sense of condescension due to her history as a child actor and her relatively short stature.

“We’re both physically tiny, so people will often treat you like a child forever,” Portman said. “I’m 43 now, and people kind of pat me on the head. I don’t look like a child, but I often feel like I’m treated like a kid.”

Ortega agreed with Portman’s sentiments: “I relate to that so immensely, and it’s always been really annoying, because you just don’t feel like you’re being taken seriously. 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.”

The actress noted that her character’s age and context in a boarding school makes people assume she’s younger than she actually is.

“I’m doing a show I’m going to be doing for years where I play a schoolgirl,” Ortega said. “But I’m also a young woman.”

The
X
star said that she thinks young men have more latitude from the public when they transition from teen stardom to grown-up performances.

“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,” she said.

Ortega also explained that her age makes people assume an inaccurate sense of naiveté.

“It really irks me when people say, ‘Oh, you don’t understand. You’re so young,'” she said. “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.”

Ortega also noted, however, that her experience has improved on
Wednesday
season 2, on which she also serves as a producer.

“I sit in on meetings and listen and learn,” she explained. “I’m still finding my footing in that area.”


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Wednesday
showrunner Miles Millar teased the upcoming second season of the show in an

interview with
Entertainment Weekly

. “Season 2 definitely has some moments which are more straightforward horror, and we’re very aware that the show is watched by everybody in terms of the age groups,” he said. “So we want to make sure that it’s never torture porn, but that there’s enough bite to it that it feels that there are real stakes and that people die in this world, and it’s scary at moments. And I think that’s the great tonal shift that the show makes between comedy and horror.”

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