Jenna Ortega on Klara and the Sun, Leos Carax, and Moving Beyond Wednesday

Jenna Ortega, 24, will appear as the robot Klara in Taika Waititi's adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel Klara and the Sun, releasing this fall. She is also set to star in a forthcoming film by French director Leos Carax, whom she began following at 15 after seeing Holy Motors. Ortega continues to lead and executive produce Netflix's Wednesday, the most-watched English-language series in the platform's history, while training in gymnastics for Nasty, directed by Mary Bronstein, in which she plays a gymnastics prodigy opposite Rose Byrne and serves as producer. Filming on Nasty begins this fall. Ortega met with Carax in Paris during a break from Wednesday's third season, which she is shooting in Dublin. Waititi cast her after comparing Klara's mimicry of the ill teenager Josie to the relationship in Ingmar Bergman's 1966 Persona; Amy Adams plays Josie's mother. Ortega's earlier credits include the Scream franchise as Tara Carpenter, the A24 slasher X, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. She began acting at six after seeing Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire, booked Colgate and McDonald's commercials and a CSI: NY role, and at 12 led the Disney Channel sitcom Stuck in the Middle. She has spoken about OCD routines, her reluctance to read reviews or watch her own films, and her interest in theater, naming a minor character in Sam Shepard's 1978 play Buried Child as a dream role.