Jenna Ortega's Pets

Jenna Ortega is an American actress. She began her career as a child, playing Annie in the supernatural horror film Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) and Mary Ann in the direct-to-video film The Little Rascals Save the Day (2014). She received recognition for her role as Young Jane on The CW comedy drama series Jane the Virgin (2014–2019), and had her breakthrough for starring as Harley Diaz on the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle (2016–2018), which won her the Imagen Award for Best Young Actor on Television in 2018, and voicing Princess Isabel on the Disney Channel animated series Elena of Avalor (2016–2020).

Ortega was cast as Tara Carpenter in the slasher film Scream in 2020, on which she stated that “I don’t even think there are words in the English language to correctly express how happy, excited and nervous I am for this journey.” Filming took place in Wilmington, North Carolina from September to November of that same year. On working with co-stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, she stated that “You never know what to expect when you’re meeting people of that standard, but they truly were just the most down-to-earth, sweetest people.” The film was released on January 14, 2022, and emerged as a critical and commercial success. Her most recent work is starring in the Netflix series Wednesday (2022), where she plays the character Wednesday Addams, which was previously played by actress Christina Ricci in the Adams Family films.

Jenna Ortega on performing autopsies on animals as a kid

During a Wired autocomplete interview, Jenna Ortega mentioned “I’m a weirdo in like… (I) used to perform autopsies on little animals when I was younger, like little lizards that were dead in my backyard.”