Jenna Ortega, the ‘Wednesday’ actress – who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent – wanted to change her appearance when she was younger but eventually realized she could be a more powerful role model by staying true to her Latin look.
Speaking to Britain’s Harper’s Bazaar magazine’s for the December issue and in recognition of her receiving the Breakthrough award at the publication’s Women of the Year Awards 2023. “I wanted to dye my hair blonde so that I would look like Cinderella,” she said.
“[But then] I thought, ‘I don’t want other young girls to look up at the screen and feel like they have to change their appearance to be deemed beautiful or worthy.’ ” Ortega began her career at a young age and admitted she found it “hard” to lose roles because of the way she looked.
“As a child actor, there are two jobs that you can get: you’re either the younger version of someone or you’re playing somebody’s daughter – and there were just not many leading Hispanic actors who I could be that for. So a lot of the jobs that I was going for growing up would never work out, because I didn’t look [a certain] way. That was really hard, to hear that something you couldn’t change was what was preventing you [from succeeding],” she explained.
The 21-year-old star is aware there is “a lot of debate and discourse about what it means to truly be Latina” and she is embarrassed that she doesn’t speak perfect Spanish, but ultimately Jenna hopes she can still “open doors” with her own success.
“I wasn’t born in a Spanish-speaking country, I haven’t spent a lot of time in Mexico and I’ve never been to Puerto Rico – so there’s a feeling of not being worthy enough to be a proper representative… I want all people of Latin descent to be able to see themselves on screen. I want to feel that I could open doors for other people,” she said.
