Jenna Ortega opens up about toxic trolls on “manipulative” social media
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega has opened up about toxic trolls on “manipulative” social media in a new interview.
As part of Variety’s Actors-on-Actors series, Ortega also became emotional when discussing the impact some of the social media trolls have on her.
“Social media, what it does to anyone our age, it’s such a comparing game,” Ortega began. “It influences bandwagon mentality. It’s very manipulative.”
Ortega went on to explain while she wants to channel her humour on social media, she’s careful with posts as she doesn’t want people to misinterpret them. She also said that the more famous she has become since the release of Wednesday, the more trolling she faces.
“They see your vulnerability and twist it in a way that you don’t always expect,” she said, before breaking down in tears.
“It’s so strange. Sorry, I didn’t mean to do this. It’s such a hard thing to balance. Because how do you be honest without jeopardising your own health and safety? It’s very easy to feel almost out of control.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Ortega confirmed that her character won’t have a love interest in season two.
Ortega confirmed that the next season will focus more prominently on the horror aspect – moving away from her character having a love interest. Ortega also confirmed that she will be undertaking a producing role in the new season too. In the show, Ortega plays the titular character of Wednesday Adams.
“It’s still coming together, but we’ve decided we want to lean into the horror more,” Ortega said in the Variety interview. “We’re ditching any romantic love interest, which is really great. We’re going to get bolder, more dark.”
Speaking about her new role as producer on the show, Ortega continued: “It was a natural progression…With a character like Wednesday, who is so beloved and such a legend, I just really didn’t want to get her wrong. So I try to have as many conversations as possible. On set, with the writers and Tim [Burton], we all would get together and decide, ‘Okay, what works and what doesn’t?’”
“In preparation for a second season, we wanted to make sure that we could start the conversations earlier. And I’m just so curious. I want to see the outfits, new characters that are coming in, scripts, and they were gracious enough to let me put the producer hat on.”
Since portraying Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s Wednesday, Ortega has starred in Scream VI and hosted Saturday Night Live. She was recently cast in a sequel to Beetlejuice opposite Michael Keaton, set to be released next year.
Ortega’s previous credits include roles in Jane The Virgin, Disney channel series Stuck In The Middle, drama film The Fallout, and the second season of You.