Jenna Ortega (born September 27, 2002 in Coachella Valley, California) is an American actress and voice actress of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.
Ortega began her career as a child actress, gaining early recognition for her recurring role as young Jane in Jane the Virgin. Her lead role as main character Harley Diaz on Stuck in the Middle led to a major rise in prominence, and she went on to receive acclaim for roles in works of various genres, from the teen drama The Fallout to the thriller series You.
Her starring role as the latest incarnation of Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family series Wednesday did invaluable work in elevating her status to one of the most popular young actors of The New '20s. Alongside the show, her roles in X, Scream (2022) and Scream VI have also solidified her as one of the up-and-coming Scream Queens of the decade to many (although she's reluctant to accept the label
).
Filmography:
Film
- Iron Man 3 (2013) as Vice President's Daughter
- Insidious 2 (2013) as Annie
- The Little Rascals Save the Day (2014) as Mary Ann Jackson
- The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020) as Phoebe Atwell
- The Fallout (2021) as Vada Cavell
- Scream (2022) as Tara Carpenter
- Scream VI (2023)
- X (2022) as Lorraine Day
- American Carnage (2022) as Camila Montes
- Finestkind (2023) as Mabel
- Miller's Girl (2024) as Cairo Sweet
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) as Astrid Deetz
Television
- CSI: NY (2012) as Aimee Moore
- Over the Garden Wall (2014) as Young Girl (credited under additional voices)
- Jane the Virgin (2014-19) as Young Jane Villanueva
- Richie Rich (2015) as Darcy
- Stuck in the Middle (2016-18) as Harley Diaz
- Elena of Avalor (2016-20) as Princess Isabel
- Bizaardvark (2018) as Izzy
- Big City Greens (2019-) as Gabriella Espinosa
- You (2019) as Ellie Alves
- Home Movie: The Princess Bride (2020) as Princess Buttercup
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020-22) as Brooklynn
- Wednesday (2022-) as Wednesday Addams / Goody Addams
Tropes associated with Jenna Ortega include:
- Actor-Shared Background: Being of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, she plays plenty of Latina characters.
- Badass Adorable: Her characters are cute as a button and adapt to a lot of situations.
- Fake Mixed Race: Her character Vada in The Fallout is mixed race with a white mother and Latino father. Jenna is fully Latina.
- Funny Character, Boring Actor: Inverted. Her most famous role so far has been as the famously stoic and grim Wednesday Addams, whose sense of humor is extremely deadpan and morbid, but she is much more outgoing, energetic and light-hearted in real life.
- Nice Girl: She tends to play friendly, approachable girls or young women.
- Playing Against Type: Wednesday Addams, to put it simply, isn't as friendly or approachable as her other roles.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: To promote Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, she dyed her hair pink like her character Brooklynn.
- She Really Can Act: Most reactions toward her in The Fallout; she was mainly known as a Disney Channel star beforehand.
