Jenna has a photographic memory—a talent that has served her well. In an interview with Seventeen, she said,
“If I run the script enough times, I just kind of know them. I used to work on this Disney show called Stuck in the Middle. We were really pushing for time and I remember that there was one day that we were about to break for holiday break and we had only two more minutes of filming left and they decided last minute that they wanted to give me a new paragraph and ditch the old one. So I remember producers chaotically shouting off camera, ‘Jenna, so the new line is—’ and I told them wait wait wait wait—just let me see the paper, let me read it once, I got it. So I read the paper once, handed it back to them and then word-for-word I delivered the line three times, three different takes, three different versions and we were done wrapping for the day. We got our schedule done and we were out the door.”
Jenna almost gave up acting for a career playing soccer. Here’s an excerpt from the Everyday Football Kids website:
From a young age, Ortega was drawn to soccer. She grew up in California, where soccer is one of the most popular sports among children. Her father played soccer professionally in Mexico, which ignited her passion for the sport.
Ortega’s soccer journey began when she joined a local team at the age of six. She quickly fell in love with the game and spent most of her childhood playing in various tournaments and matches. Her dedication and talent earned her a spot on the U.S. Soccer Development Academy team, where she continued to hone her skills.
However, as Ortega’s acting career began to take off, it became increasingly challenging to balance her passion for soccer with her work. She had to make a tough decision and chose to put her soccer dreams on hold temporarily to focus on her acting career.
Jenna described it in an Instagram Live Stream when she was seventeen:
“I used to play soccer. I played soccer for a big portion of my life. But then I had to stop once I started my Disney show a few years ago. So I haven’t played since.”
The day that Jenna was filming her iconic Rave’n dance scene on Wednesday, she had COVID:
“It was my first day with COVID. It was awful to film and I asked to redo it but we didn’t have time. So that’s another thing too. I was like ‘Ah man I probably wasn’t at my best when I did that.’ I had woken up with the body aches. I felt like I had been hit by a car the day before and I felt like a little goblin had been let loose in my throat and was scratching the walls of my esophagus. So I definitely felt it. They were giving me medicine in between takes because we were waiting on the positive result.”
Jenna can’t watch her own performances.
During an Instagram live feed in 2019, Jenna said this:
“I hate watching myself. Watching myself is a personal hell. Never. I just can’t. If I watch it, then I’m—actually, they sent me the first few episodes in advance [of You Season 2], and halfway through the first episode I stopped and I started crying because it was like, ‘I can’t. I can’t do this'”
In part of a 2021 interview on Cosmopolitan, Jenna shared this:
“If I can avoid [seeing] myself, I will do so at all costs…When I say I haven’t watched my work, I truly haven’t. Like the first project I was ever on, my family all surrounded the TV watching and I was in my room. My parents are like, ‘Hey come down. Come watch.’ and I’m like, ‘No, I was there. I know what happens.'”
From a 2023 interview in Harper’s Bazaar UK:
“I can’t watch my work, as I know I won’t be able to push forward and continue to grow as an actor if I cling on to certain things. A lot of people in my profession can probably relate to this: when you do a take you don’t like, you go to bed kicking yourself. But ultimately, all I can do is be vulnerable and honest when the camera’s on, and then I have to move on and let it go. It’s really hard for me to not feel in control.”
For the show Stuck in the Middle, Disney originally intended to call Jenna’s character “Hillary Baxter”.
In a 2021 interview with LATINA, Jenna was asked what advice she had for young Latinas and Latinos hoping to make it in the entertainment industry. This was her answer:
“Don’t let character descriptions sway you from not going out for something, because I know that a lot of the projects that I booked were specifically written for ‘white girl, blonde hair, blue eyes’. A lot of my main projects like ‘Stuck in the Middle’, where a lot of people know me from that Disney show, it’s like that was written—I think the family’s last name was ‘Baxter’ and it went from ‘Hillary Baxter’ to ‘Harley Diaz’, you know, so I think that one I think putting racial limitations on characters is ridiculous in the first place. I don’t understand why that was ever a thing and while they are opening up a little bit more, if you feel that you can do that character justice and it’s something that you’re passionate about, try to get into as many rooms as possible. And you’re going to get a lot of NO’s, that’s just the way it is. I wouldn’t let that make you feel any differently about your talent or your passion.”