“I went on that set, and I loved it, and had the best time. And then I thought … ‘There’s no way I could let this go.’”

Why Jenna Ortega almost quit acting before booking a role on You

"I went on that set, and I loved it, and had the best time. And then I thought … 'There's no way I could let this go.'"

By Leigh Blickley

April 9, 2026 11:41 a.m. ET

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Jenna Ortega at the 2026 Oscars on March 1. Credit:

Frazer Harrison/WireImage

Jenna Ortega is now known as Gen Z's "Scream Queen," but before she launched her successful career, she almost walked away from the industry entirely.

"When I was a teenager, I'd gotten off of a children's show, and I didn't know what I was going to do," Ortega told Kid Cudi on the April 8 episode of his new podcast, *Big Bro With Kid Cudi*. "I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn't know who I was. It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to, you know?"

She elaborated, "I was starting high school and, you know, it was a good run sort of thing. And then we had talked about it for a few months, my team and whatever, 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. And then I thought, 'Yeah, there's no way. There's no way I could let this go.'"

Before booking her role as Ellie Alves on season 2 of the hit Netflix thriller, Ortega starred on Disney Channel's *Stuck in the Middle *and voiced characters on the animated series *Elena of Avalor* and *Big City Greens*. After *You*, however, the doors really started to open for her, with her securing parts in movies like *Yes Day*, *The Fallout, *and *Scream 5. *She would become a household name after scoring the lead as Wednesday Addams on another big Netflix show, *Wednesday*.

The black comedy, which follows the titular character as she explores the dark secrets of her school, Nevermore Academy, earned Ortega an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2023. It was renewed for a third season last year.

Jenna Ortega on 'You'.

Ortega admitted that being the first name on a call sheet holds "a different responsibility" and that although she's so fulfilled by her work, she's very aware of the grind.

"You wake up, you go to work, you film, go home, look at your sides, go to bed, do it again. Do it five or six days a week," she said on the podcast. "There's not really room for a life. Which, again, lucky, but it is intensive work."

She continued, "It's almost like sleepwalking, because you're so exhausted and you're so used to doing the same thing every day that you're not really challenging yourself anymore. Fortunately, it's a creative job, so you're always finding inspiration in a scene or new character or a premise. But every once in a while, I'll be like washing my face before bed, and I look up and I think, like, 'Oh my God, you're still there.' Because I haven't thought about myself in so long."

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Ortega — who also starred in the recent flicks *Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice* and* Death of a Unicorn* — has been on a much-needed break, she said, taking time to figure out "what to do" with her hands.

"I just had three or four months off of production for the first time in years —*years*. And I was so scared," she admitted on the podcast. "I remember everyone saying, 'Okay, you just take care of yourself.' Because they know how much I like the job. They know how much I like showing up and shooting."

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Ortega added that she has picked up a few hobbies and feels "so much better."

"I learned so much about what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy, and I know how to entertain myself real well now," she told Cudi. "I just got to do real domestic stuff I was missing out on for a while. Like cooking … And I've been painting my kitchen myself. It looks so bad, but it's so good to do! … It's, like, a nice mindless activity. It's felt good to feel like a normal person."

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Source: “EW Actors”