Jenna Ortega Ignores Reviews, Box Office — and Plans a TV Break After 'Wednesday'

Jenna Ortega does not read reviews, does not watch her own movies and does not check box office numbers — and she plans to step away from television once Netflix's "Wednesday" ends. The 22-year-old star laid out this deliberate distance in a new Vogue cover story published as her film "Klara and the Sun" prepares to open in theaters on Oct. 23.

What does Ortega actually avoid — and why?

Reading reviews, she told Vogue, "would send me into a psychosis of some sort." When her team forwards box office updates, she passes. "I don't want it to become a numbers thing," she said.

For most of her film career, Ortega used social media to gauge word of mouth around her projects. She is doing even that less now. She described herself as being on social media "less and less" because "so much of what you see on there nowadays is just garbage AI," adding: "we all look at ourselves too much."

The distance is practical, not theoretical. Ortega recently broke her phone and left it unfixed for several days so she could live without technology at her fingertips.

"If I needed to get somewhere, if I had a workout class, I would look at a map on the computer, memorize the streets," she told Vogue. "If somebody needed me, I'm like, 'Well, I'm gonna be at this café at this time.' And that was so freeing."

What does the timing mean for 'Klara and the Sun'?

Ortega's aversion arrives as the numbers turn against her. "Klara and the Sun," directed by Taika Waititi and adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel of the same name, has drawn poor reviews. Variety panned it as "calamitous" and "a strained, whimsical comedy that's ruinous." The film holds a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is tracking for a box office debut in the $2 million range against a $20 million production budget.

Ortega, by her own account, will not see any of that coverage or those grosses.

Is she leaving television?

In a separate interview on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Ortega reflected on her television career. She debuted on screen at age 9 on "Jane the the Virgin" — the source names it "Jane the Virgin" — then found Disney stardom across three seasons of "Stuck in the Middle." She now headlines "Wednesday," which is heading into its third season on Netflix.

Whenever the series ends, she intends to pause. "What I'm meant to do will come and find me," Ortega said. "I think after 'Wednesday,' I'll probably be off the TV for a while. You know I had many years doing [TV]. I was bouncing from show to show as a kid and I want to leave time for new things."

What does this change for her career?

In the short term, nothing: "Wednesday" season three is still ahead, and "Klara and the Sun" opens Oct. 23 regardless of its 27% score. The longer signal is Ortega's stated intent to diversify beyond television after roughly 13 years of consecutive series work — though she offered no timetable, and no confirmation of when "Wednesday" itself might conclude.