Jenna Ortega is opening up about her career.
The 23-year-old superstar Wednesday actress appears in Esquire’s Mavericks of Hollywood September 2026 issue, available to read on Esquire.com now and out on newsstands on August 25.
During the conversation, she discussed her hit Netflix series, the upcoming third season of the show, taking risks in her career, and her character Wednesday Addams.
See highlights from the conversation with Jenna Ortega…
On the upcoming third season of Wednesday: “This season, especially because the kids are seniors in high school now, we’re dealing with more confrontational feelings regarding family and what it means to be an adult and what you see for your life. It’s not really until you get to the precipice of adulthood that you start to realize, Oh, God, well, maybe I’ve got to have a plan.”
On whether she shares much in common with her character Wednesday Addams: “We mesh pretty well. But while I’m in production, going over scripts over and over again, and I’m there all day, every day, and in every scene…yeah, there’s times where I think like her. Maybe she peeks out a bit more, here and there.”
On working with J.J. Abrams on his new project, The Great Beyond: “He’s very intentional with everything. The character that I play is a lost young person in a new city. [She has] a confusing history and finds a friend in Glen Powell’s character…and that’s pretty much all I could say! She’s very knowledgeable about one thing. This is her obsession. She’s quite manic the way that she loves this thing, and it takes over her whole personality. So it was nice for me to play somebody who’s just obsessed with something like that. A freak in a different way.”
On entering a new chapter of her career: “I’ve been in this experimental phase. It’s only been in the last year or so—especially with the show coming to a head and getting ready to enter this next chapter in my life and career—that I’ve really honed in. I’ve seen some things now. I’ve tried some things. Now it’s important to me to be focused on stories and characters that I feel truly connected to.”
On learning from career risks: “One hundred percent, yeah. I don’t know if I can ever categorize anything as a mistake. Good or bad, you’re going to learn from it.”
On her character, Wednesday: “Wednesday is very aware of who she is, the world that she lives in and what she wants out of it. Anytime anyone is just undeniably themselves, it’s quite magnetic.”
She also stars in the outlet’s “How I Got Here” series, and discusses her show’s overnight success, early creative influences, the riskiest thing she’s done for an audition, working with Tim Burton, landing her Beetlejuice role, shooting Sabrina Carpenter‘s “Taste” music video, working with Paul Rudd and Glen Powell, and more. Watch it below!
Jenna will also star in a new project called Nasty, rooted in the world of gymnastics. Get the first details.
The post Jenna Ortega Teases ‘Wednesday’ Season 3, Reveals How the Character Has Rubbed Off on Her & Talks Next Career Chapter appeared first on Just Jared - Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment.