Jenna Ortega revealed that as a child actor, she would sometimes go an entire day without eating or drinking on set, driven by a desire not to be in the way of production.
"I wasn’t asking for a sip of water," Ortega, 23, told Esquire in an interview published Wednesday. "I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody."
The actress acknowledged that neglecting her own needs was a "mistake." She noted that while she doesn't recall other significant errors from her early career, she "make[s] mistakes now all the time."
Ortega, who realized she wanted to act at age 7, described herself as stubborn and someone who never questioned her chosen path. She cited Dakota Fanning as a childhood role model, admiring her perceived wisdom.
Her professional acting career began at age 9 in the 2012 sitcom "Rob." The following year, she appeared in "Insidious: Chapter 2" and "Iron Man 3." Ortega also held a recurring role in "Jane the Virgin" from 2014 to 2019 and starred as Harley Diaz in "Stuck in the Middle" between 2016 and 2018.
More recently, she has taken on roles in "You," "Scream," and "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." Ortega admitted that before these more mature roles, she considered quitting acting. She felt intimidated by the need to "prove [her]self and meet all these new casting directors who didn’t know who [she] was."
"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," Ortega recalled.
However, after her role in "You," she experienced a shift in perspective, deciding, "Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go."
Upcoming projects for Ortega include "Klara and the Sun," slated for release in October, and the third season of her Netflix series "Wednesday," expected to premiere next year.