Jenna Ortega struggled to cope with Wednesday stardom

RTÉ News​

a day ago

Wednesday star Jenna Ortega has admitted she was an "unhappy person" after feeling increased pressure and attention when she shot to global fame in the Netflix series.
The first season, which sees Ortega play the morbid character Wednesday Addams and arrive at a mysterious private school, is listed by the streaming giant as its most popular show - ahead of Stranger Things and Adolescence.
The American actress, 22, who had roles in Netflix series You and Disney Channel show S tuck In The Middle before Wednesday, told Harper's Bazaar that she felt "incredibly misunderstood" when she became famous.
"To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person," she also said.
"After the pressure, the attention - as somebody who's quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary."
The series, which sees Wednesday try to control her emerging psychic ability and solves crimes, is returning for a second season, with Joanna Lumley joining the cast as Grandmama and Steve Buscemi as Barry Dort, the new principal of the school, Nevermore Academy.
Ortega also said "you just don't feel like you're being taken seriously", after explaining that she has to wear a schoolgirl outfit in the show when she is a "young woman".
She said: "It's like how you're dressed in the schoolgirl costume… There's just something about it that's very patronising. Also, when you're short, people are already physically looking down on you."
Ortega also said that it is different for rising female stars "if they don't stay as this perfect image of how they were first introduced to you, then it's 'Ah, something's wrong. She's changed. She sold her soul'.
"But you're watching these women at the most pivotal times in their lives; they're experimenting because that's what you do."
The actress follows child star Millie Bobby Brown, who has also made remarks hitting out at social media and the press for making comments about her growing older.
Stranger Things actress Brown, 21, wrote on Instagram that the media "was dissecting my face, my body, my choices" because they think she should be "frozen in time" as a child actor.
She also wrote: "Disillusioned people can't handle seeing a girl become a woman on her terms, not theirs. I refuse to apologise for growing up.
"I refuse to make myself smaller to fit the unrealistic expectations of people who can't handle seeing a girl become a woman."
However, Ortega did say she was "very grateful" for the fans of Wednesday, who have copied her viral black dress dance, and enjoyed the programme, and said she hopes to make "older and bolder and different" projects in the future.
Since Wednesday saw her nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe, Ortega has been in the 2024 Beetlejuice sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and 2025 dark fantasy film Death Of A Unicorn.
Wednesday season two, which sees Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones continuing to play Morticia Addams, comes out on Netflix on August 6 with a first part and a second part coming on September 3.
Created by cartoonist Charles Addams, the macabre family have inspired a 1960s TV show, and 1990s films starring Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci, who also appears in Wednesday as a teacher.