Jenna Ortega wants to direct the movie she's spent 10 years writing

In a new interview with her Hurry Up Tomorrow co-star, The Weeknd, Ortega talks about moving behind the camera. 

Jenna Ortega wants to direct the movie she's spent 10 years writing
Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

Jenna Ortega isn’t taking her newfound stardom lightly. Like the Dune two, Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet, before her, she is avoiding the pitfalls of superhero movies to make things she wants to see. Now a producer on the second season of Wednesday and an executive producer on her new film with The Weeknd, Hurry Up Tomorrow, Ortega is already looking for the next step. In a new interview conducted by Weeknd for V Magazine, Ortega plans on putting on the puffy pants, picking up the bullhorn, and yelling that immortal word, “Action!” on a movie she’s spent the last 10 years writing. “I have a script that I’ve known that I was going to make for almost 10 years,” says Ortega, who must’ve been 12 or 13 when she started writing it. “It’s weird because it’s something that I thought of when I was younger and when I first started out in this field, and it’s only now that I’m actually starting to take the steps to get it made.” Ortega says that while she sees herself acting in the film, she really wants to direct, which is “the main thing I want to do […] I just feel that’s the way my brain wants to work and think, and that’s how I even view my acting sometimes.”

Over the last few years, Ortega has continuously leveraged her power as an up-and-coming star and name above the title to shape the projects she makes. In 2023, she made headlines over the assertion that she “just started changing lines” to Wednesday scripts because “everything that [Wednesday] does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all.” She later clarified that “it’s natural to be fearful of signing your life away and wanting some sort of agency or wanting confirmation that your voice would be heard.” Ortega also wisely read the writing on the wall regarding Scream VII and left the production after co-star Melissa Barrera was fired for criticizing the Israeli government. These kinds of experiences prepared Ortega for directing. “I think I needed a few years of that under my belt to understand the order of doing things. Everything that I’ve done in my career, I feel like there’s a reason why I didn’t make this story at an earlier time, but I’m really excited about it.”

 
Join the discussion...