Jenna Ortega Nearly Quit Acting Until She Joined Netflix's Thriller

• Primary Subject: Jenna Ortega's career transition
• Key Update: Jenna Ortega revealed she nearly retired from acting to start high school before landing her breakout role in Netflix's You.
• Status: Developing
• Last Verified: April 9, 2026
• Quick Answer: Ortega almost quit after Stuck in the Middle due to industry fatigue, but booking the role of Ellie Alves in You season 2 changed everything.

After wrapping her lead role as Harley Diaz on Disney Channel's Stuck in the Middle (2016-2018), Jenna Ortega hit a professional crossroads. A recent interview had the star recount her days of transitioning from a child actor to more mature roles under the pressure of only being seen as a Disney kid.

Why Jenna Ortega Nearly Quit Acting After Stuck in the Middle

Credit: Netflix

Ortega revealed in a recent interview on the Big Bro with Kid Cudi podcast that before landing her breakout roles like Wednesday Addams in Netflix's Wednesday and Tara Carpenter in Scream and Scream VI, she was already planning to quit Hollywood and the acting industry.

"When I was a teenager, I'd gotten off a children's show. I didn't know what I was going to do," Ortega recalled the struggle of reality she had to face after rising as a Disney star, "I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn't know who I was. It felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to."

But one particular project changed her mind and had her leading to a different direction, "I was starting high school, it was a good run sort of thing, and then we had talked about it for a few months, my team, and then I booked that show, You, and then I went on that set and I loved it and had the best time and I thought, 'Yeah, there's no way I could let this go.'"

Ortega became a series regular in You season 2, where she played Ellie Alves, the neighbor of the obsessive serial killer Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and sister to Delilah Alves (Carmela Zumbado). While Ellie survived, Ortega's schedule became increasingly busy.

How Netflix's Psychological Thriller Led to Ortega's Hollywood Rise

Credit: Netflix

After starring in Stuck in the Middle and Netflix's You, Ortega went on to voice Brooklynn in the animated Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous and starred in The Fallout, a movie that explores the aftermath of a school shooting, with her character being a survivor named Vada Cavell.

Then came Scream, A24's slasher film X, Wednesday, Scream VI, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and A24's Death of a Unicorn, which cemented her as a go-to horror star actress, particularly after her popularity rose when she shifted from being the bubbly Harley Diaz to the gothic macabre teen Wednesday Addams, which defined her acting range on the small screens.

Thanks to Ortega's decision to stay in the acting industry, she went on to star in more upcoming high-profile projects, including The Gallerist, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

She is bound to return in Wednesday season 3, where she plays the titular character in Nevermore Academy, and will also be a part of the highly anticipated science-fiction Klara and the Sun, which is based on Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel of the same title, where she plays the eponymous robot named Klara.

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