{"id":863114,"date":"2026-08-21T10:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/863114\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:58:09","slug":"wednesday-actress-jenna-ortega-would-go-all-day-without-food-or-water-on-set-as-child-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/863114\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wednesday’ actress Jenna Ortega would go all day without food or water on set as child star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenna Ortega has revealed the lengths she went to as a child actor to avoid being a burden for fear of derailing her fledgling career while on set.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on,\u201d the 23-year-old Wednesday\u00a0actress told Esquire in its How I Got Here\u00a0YouTube clip. \u201cI wasn\u2019t asking for a sip of water. I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

She now allows that \u201cnot actually looking after myself\u201d may have been a mistake. The Screen Actors Guild\u2014American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-Aftra) has strict rules about how child actors are treated, many of them based on state law.<\/p>\n

Ortega knew at age seven\u00a0that she wanted to act, and once her parents were done laughing, they became unwavering supporters, she said. By age nine\u00a0she had landed her first bit movie part, as the disabled daughter of the late Miguel Ferrer\u2019s vice president Gil Rodriguez in Iron Man 3.\u00a0Her character was missing a foot.<\/p>\n

\"JennaJenna Ortega in 2013’s ‘Iron Man 3’. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n

\u201cI had sat on my leg all day at work, and I limped all the way to the car with smiles and tears running down my face,\u201d she told Esquire. \u201cI was just so happy to have been on a movie set. I refused to leave the wheelchair, because if somebody needed me, I wanted to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actress hinted at what it was like \u201cgrowing up Disney\u201d in a 2025 Harper\u2019s Bazaar sit-down. At 13 she began playing Harley Diaz, the protagonist in Disney Channel\u2019s Stuck In The Middle,\u00a0the 2016-19 series about a middle child of seven kids \u2014 all too familiar terrain for Ortega, who\u2019s in the middle of six. She also appeared as the young version of series protagonist Jane Villanueva in Jane The Virgin\u00a0from 2014-2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She counts Richie Rich, You\u00a0and Elena Of Avalor\u00a0among other television credits. On the big screen she\u2019s known for her parts in the Scream\u00a0and Beetlejuice\u00a0movie franchises. \u2013 New York Daily News\/TNS<\/p>\n

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