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Jenna Ortega’s on course to make her mark as the new generation’s scream queen this year. The 19-year-old has signed on to portray the iconic Wednesday Addams in Tim Burton’s upcoming Netflix series, Wednesday. While she has admitted to feeling the pressure of bringing her own uniqueness to the role, she believes it is an offer she could not pass up.
In an interview with Empire, the Scream actress revealed a major reason why she signed up for the role… her Latina heritage and the need for more representation:
A big part of the reason I signed on is because she’s technically a Latina character and that’s never been shown or represented,. As someone who struggled, and still struggles to this day, with some sort of feeling of representation or relatability in mainstream media and film and television, I recognised this was an opportunity for me to… give that relatability to other girls like myself.
She also mentioned that she has been compared to Wednesday in real life because of her humor, thus deeming it an appropriate role to play, as well as an opportunity to try something different:
Looking the way I do and having the cultural background I have, there aren’t many iconic characters out there. So when an opportunity like this comes up – she’s someone I’ve been compared to my whole life, just because of my humour and dry nature, so it just seemed fitting. I thought that would be a nice way to flex my muscles in a different way.
There’s no release date for the Netflix series yet, but Ortega is set to strain the upcoming horror comedy, Studio 666, and the slasher film, X, which will be released on Feb. 25 and March 18 respectively.