Los Angeles, April 9 "Wednesday" actress Jenna Ortega has revealed that she seriously considered quitting acting after her children's show "Stuck in the Middle" ended, saying a role in Netflix's thriller series "You" convinced her to stay.
Speaking on rapper Kid Cudi's "Big Bro" podcast, Ortega said she felt lost after wrapping up the Disney series and faced the challenge of re-establishing herself with a new set of casting directors.
"I didn't know what else I was going to do. I've never really considered anything else, more so recently, just out of curiosity and wanting another life experience. But when I was a teenager, I'd gotten off a children's show, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn't know who I was," she said.
Ortega said the decision to quit was actively discussed with her team before a booking changed everything.
In 2019, she landed the role of Ellie Alves, Joe Goldberg's downstairs neighbor played by Penn Badgley, in the second season of "You."
"It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to. I was starting high school, and, 'it was a good run' sort of thing. We had talked about it for a few months with my team. And then, I think I booked that show 'You,' and then I went on that set, and I loved it and had the best time. I thought, 'Yeah, there's no way I could let this go,'" she said.
The role proved to be a turning point. She has since starred in films such as "X", "Scream VI", "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" and "Death of a Unicorn", and leads Netflix's "Wednesday", the adaptation of the popular cartoon "Addams Family".
Ortega is set to star opposite Taylor Russell in a remake of the 1992 thriller "Single White Female" and will also portray the titular character in director Taika Waititi's screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "Klara and the Sun".