Most people know Jenna Ortega for her iconic black braids and goth aesthetic on the show “Wednesday.” But her story starts long before she headed to Nevermore Academy — back when she was a Desert Sands Unified School District student.
The Coachella Valley native will appear in the upcoming dark comedy thriller film “The Gallerist” opposite Natalie Portman, which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 24 and be released in theaters later this year.
Ortega will also appear in the upcoming films “The Great Beyond” and “Klara and the Sun.” And, don’t worry, “Wednesday” fans, she’ll start filming the third season of the Netflix show sometime this year.
Here are 10 things to know about Ortega based on the most-searched questions about her.
Jenna Ortega height
Ortega is 5′ 1,″ according to her IMDb page.
Jenna Ortega age
At the time of this story’s publication, Jenna Ortega is 23 years old. She was born Sept. 27, 2002, according to her IMDb page.
Jenna Ortega, Olivia Rodrigo friendship
Ortega and singer/actress Olivia Rodrigo have maintained a close friendship since meeting during their time on the Disney Channel (they even co-starred in one episode of the Disney show “Bizaardvark” together).
Despite online rumors, however, no — these two young stars are not cousins (though they were both born and raised in Riverside County).
Jenna Ortega was raised in La Quinta
In a 2023 video interview with The Sunday Times, Ortega said she was born in Rancho Mirage, but she grew up in La Quinta. She attended Amelia Earhart Elementary School and John Glenn Middle School, both in Indio.
During a 2022 interview with USA TODAY, she said her role in the film “The Fallout” exploring the emotional aftermath of a school shooting through a teenage survivor hit close to home. Ortega remembered a day in seventh grade when an active shooter drill turned into an actual lockdown: A fellow John Glenn Middle student brought a black BB gun to school and told another kid it was real, leading to police being called.
Jenna Ortega began acting when she was 8
Ortega told The Desert Sun during a 2016 interview that she began acting when she was 8 after her mother bought her a book on the subject.
“She had hoped that I would stop bugging her about acting, but I didn’t. My mom sat me down and told me that it wasn’t as easy as I thought it was and that I would have to spend lots of hours in the car traveling back and forth from the desert to L.A,” Ortega said in 2016.
After landing an agent, Ortega began auditioning and getting roles in commercials, then started getting theatrical auditions with smaller roles on TV and in films. Her first roles were in 2012 in the TV shows “Rob” and “CSI: NY,” and she also appeared in “Insidious: Chapter 2” and “Iron Man 3.”
Jenna Ortega’s breakout role was in a Disney sitcom
When Ortega was 13, she landed her breakout role as Harley in the Disney sitcom “Stuck in the Middle,” which ran for three seasons from 2016 to 2018. She played the middle child trying to stand out among a family of seven children. It was similar to her real life — she is the fourth of six children.
“We both come from big Latino American families, and are the middle child. I like that the creators made Harley smart and that she’s able to talk directly to her audience. I’m very honored that I get to tell the story from my perspective,” Ortega said in 2016.
Jenna Ortega studied German, archery and more to become ‘Wednesday’
When Ortega was preparing to play Wednesday Addams for the Netflix series “Wednesday,” she studied German, archery and trained with a former member of the Romanian national fencing team for the role. In order to give the character a unique look for the 2020s, she said Billie Eilish was “on the mood board.”
But Ortega said she also became protective of the character, to “not sacrifice who she was for the sake of a teen television series. I learned a lot about using my voice. I’ve never quite fought for a character like that before.”
There’s also a blend of her own vulnerability with the character.
“I have a really nasty resting face; I look mad all the time,” Ortega said in 2022. “People will come up to me and tell me that they were intimidated by me. But part of it is I just have crippling social anxiety.”
Jenna Ortega says her relationship with social media is ‘ugly’
In 2023, Ortega described her relationship with social media as “ugly” in an interview for Variety’s Actors on Actors.
“Even after shooting ‘Wednesday,’ when I was auditioning for certain roles, they would come to my team: ‘We like her, but we just don’t know if she has enough of a platform or enough of a name,’” Ortega said. “And social media, what it does to anyone our age, it’s such a comparing game. It almost influences bandwagon mentality. … It’s very manipulative,” Ortega told Variety.
Ortega said her relationship with social media has improved in recent years and that she still maintains a desire to share her honest self as a public figure.
“I still have this really, really intense urge to be human and honest and authentic,” Ortega told Variety. “Another thing about this industry is you get in front of a camera and people want you to be something else, where it’s ‘Have more energy’ or ‘Could you smile a bit more?’ and it just feels so gross. And I don’t want to feel gross. I would rather people see me cry and do whatever than be something that I’m not.”
Fans have expressed anger over Ortega’s smoking habit
Ortega has been photographed in public dressed in a variety of chic outfits in recent years, sometimes accessorized by a cigarette, which has angered some of her fans and anti-smoking organizations. When the first photos of Ortega smoking appeared in 2023, her mother Natalie, a nurse at Eisenhower Health, also publicly called her out on Instagram.
She’s not the only one. A 2025 article by Elle Magazine listed Ortega among Matt Damon, Lady Gaga, Michael Fassbender, Dua Lipa, Jennifer Lawrence, and others who smoke.
Jenna Ortega Scream 7
Why did Ortega leave the upcoming “Scream 7” project?
In an April interview with The Cut, she explained what led her to exit the film after her co-star Melissa Barrera was cut following her comments on the Israel-Hamas war.
“It had nothing to do with pay or scheduling,” Ortega told The Cut. “The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart.”
(This story was updated to add a link.)
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Who is Jenna Ortega? What to know about lauded actress from La Quinta
Reporting by Brian Blueskye, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
