Jenna Ortega Almost Quit Acting Before ‘You’ Role

Although she’s considered one of today’s most recognizable leading ladies, Jenna Ortega was ready to throw in the towel after her days as a child actor.

The Emmy nominee recently revealed that she nearly quit acting following her 2016-’18 run on Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle, but booking her Season 2 role as Ellie Alves on Netflix‘s You convinced her “there’s no way” she could give it up.

“I didn’t know what else I was gonna do,” she explained on Kid Cudi’s Big Bro podcast. “I’ve never really considered anything else—more-so recently, just out of sake of curiosity and wanting another life experience. But when I was a teenager, I’d gotten off a children’s show, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn’t know who I was.”

Ortega continued, “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. 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. I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go.’”

In Season 2 of You, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) moves from New York to Los Angeles in order to escape the consequences of his murderous ways. Meeting his downstairs neighbor Ellie (Ortega) complicates things as he tries to put the past behind him.

Penn Badgley and Jenna Ortega in ‘You’ (Beth Dubber/Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The actress has since found success with roles in the Scream franchise, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Death of a Unicorn and the title role in Netflix’s Wednesday. She also starred alongside Cudi in Ti West’s 2022 slasher X.

Ortega can next be seen in The Gallerist, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January, also starring Natalie Portman.