Now 21, Jenna rose to fame after starring in Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle between 2016 and 2018.
She eventually went on to gain huge worldwide recognition after landing roles in Netflix series You and later Wednesday, the latter of which she stars in as the leading titular character, Wednesday Addams.
And opening up about what it was like working in the acting industry from such a young age, Jenna — who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent — recently told Harper’s Bazaar that she struggled with feeling pressured to conform to the beauty standards of Hollywood.
Jenna explained, “As a child actor, there are two jobs that you can get: you’re either the younger version of someone or you’re playing somebody’s daughter. And there were just not many leading Hispanic actors who I could be that for.”
“So, a lot of the jobs that I was going for growing up would never work out, because I didn’t look a certain way,” she shared.
Jenna went on to note that she found this rejection “really hard” to deal with, and wound up almost dying her hair blonde as a result.
“That was really hard, to hear that something you couldn’t change was what was preventing you [from succeeding],” she said.
“I wanted to dye my hair blonde so that I would look like Cinderella,” she added.
However, as we all know, Jenna ultimately refused to go blonde, instead sticking with her signature dark look that she’s so renowned for today.
“I thought, I don’t want other young girls to look up at the screen and feel like they have to change their appearance to be deemed beautiful or worthy,” she shared.
Jenna then briefly explained that she sometimes feels she isn’t “worthy enough” to a “proper representative” of her Hispanic heritage.
“I wasn’t born in a Spanish-speaking country, I haven’t spent a lot of time in Mexico and I’ve never been to Puerto Rico,” she said. “So there’s a feeling of not being worthy enough to be a proper representative.”
However, Jenna later added, “I want all people of Latin descent to be able to see themselves on screen. I want to feel that I could open doors for other people.”
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/leylamohammed/jenna-ortega-struggling-latina-child-actor-blonde
