Netflix’s Wednesday was an audience smash, but Jenna Ortega, the show’s young star, still seems a little baffled as to why it got so popular. In a new interview with the Times UK, Ortega reveals that when she first got the offer to play the role she didn’t immediately jump at the chance to star in the series.
“I got the email, passed on it,” she said to the Times. When asked for more detail, she explained that a lot of it had to do with having already “done so much TV in my life, [and] all I’ve ever wanted to do is film.” Ortega has been acting professionally since she was nine. She’s currently 20, so she’s spent over half her life performing.
“It’s only in the last three or four years that I’ve been able to start going up for film,” she continued. “I was scared that by signing on to another television show it could prevent me from doing other jobs I really wanted and cared about. The only reason I went back is because Tim [Burton, director and executive producer of Wednesday] is such a legend, and we just happened to get along very well. But even then I said, ‘Ah, no — I think I’m OK,’ a couple [more] times.”
Ortega is one of the stars of Scream VI, currently in theatres.