Jenna Ortega, 21, began working at age 7 when she was cast as Harley in the Disney series “Stuck in the Middle,” so she’s well-versed in the world of child stars. She didn’t watch the Nickelodeon documentary “Quiet on Set,” detailing the widespread abuse of young stars, but she told the New York Times that her mother did. “She called me about it,” Ortega said, before she later added, “She watched over me like a hawk, so I think for her, it was more empathizing and wishing she somehow could have done something to help.”
“I think for her, it was more pain, because she had seen the way that other children maybe weren’t protected or weren’t as looked after,” Ortega explained. “She just called me saying she was so grateful that things were OK and that she was there to witness everything.”
The actress shared her hatred of A.I., while noting that it could have good uses such as early detection of breast cancer. But, “Did I like being 14 and making a Twitter account because I was supposed to and seeing dirty edited content of me as a child? No. It’s terrifying. It’s corrupt. It’s wrong.”
She continued, “One of the first — actually the first D.M. that I ever opened myself when I was 12 was an unsolicited photo of a man’s genitals, and that was just the beginning of what was to come. I used to have that Twitter account and I was told that, Oh, you got to do it, you got to build your image. I ended up deleting it about two, three years ago because the influx after the show had come out — these absurd images and photos, and I already was in a confused state that I just deleted it.”
Describing how that content made her feel, Ortega added, “It was disgusting, and it made me feel bad. It made me feel uncomfortable. Anyway, that’s why I deleted it, because I couldn’t say anything without seeing something like that. So one day I just woke up, and I thought, Oh, I don’t need this anymore. So I dropped it.”
“Child acting is strange,” she said elsewhere in the interview. “I see why my parents felt so hesitant about it, because you’re putting a child in an adult workplace. I think if I had just stayed growing up in Coachella Valley, I would be a completely different person. I wouldn’t speak the way that I do or approach interactions the way that I do.”
Having worked as an actor as a child “completely changed my way of thinking and going about life, and when I speak to other child actors, I can pick them out instantly because we all have that — it’s just very specific, like some secret little language or something that we all share.”
Kids “aren’t supposed to be working like that,” she added. “They are supposed to be climbing trees and drawing and going to school. Some of those kids’ parents don’t even take school seriously, so I feel really, really fortunate to have had parents who made sure that I hung out with friends, made sure that I went to public school and wouldn’t allow me to work on a job unless I had straight A’s and was prioritizing my sleep and my schoolwork.”
Ortega added that a lot of child actors emit a precociousness that can be mistaken as maturity, but “It’s almost a mask. It’s a professionalism that people our age typically aren’t equipped with because you’re waking up at 6 in the morning every day and starting your morning with meetings and coffee, and I think it’s very important to mention that we think it’s maturity, and it’s not.”
Though the now adult said she “wouldn’t change anything” about her childhood, she admitted that both she and her parents have had regrets about her experiences at different times, and she appreciates her time on set as a young child more than anything. “I love that when I go on a set now, I’m incredibly knowledgeable. I know what the camera verbiage means, I know what a grip’s job is, I know what a gaffer’s job is, I can get along with the D.P., I can go through shot lists. I understand it all.”
Ortega also said that she believes her experiences as a child star have given her the ability to connect with actresses older than her, such as her “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” costar, Winona Ryder, whom she described as “so warm and welcoming and kind and inviting right from the jump.”
“The way Winona and I got along was quite weird. It was like we were reading each other’s minds a little bit,” Ortega said.
You can read the full interview with Jenna Ortega at the New York Times.
