Jenna Ortega Brags She Went Without Food and Water as a Child Actor
by Chrissy Stockton · Thought CatalogUpdated 4 minutes ago, August 13, 2026
Before she was Wednesday Addams on Netflix, Jenna Ortega was a child actress with roles on CSI: NY, Iron Man 3, Insidious: Chapter 2, and Days of Our Lives.
In a new interview with Esquire, Ortega talked about her time as a child actor and says she’d go all day without food or water in order to “disappear on set” because she didn’t want to be in anyone’s way. Here’s the full quote: “As a child, I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on. I wasn’t asking for a sip of water. I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.”
Looking back on it, she says she wishes she would have done better, telling Esquire “Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself.”
However, it shouldn’t be up to inexperienced children to “get it right.” That’s what the responsible adults on set and in the child’s life are there for. These adults and these sets failed Ortega.
I almost think we shouldn’t have child actors at all. We’ve been given opportunity after opportunity to show that we can create a working environment that is safe enough for children to work in Hollywood — and we’ve failed. There are too many children who have been horrifically abused.
Even the “tame” stories like what Ortega says show how unhealthy the environment is for kids. There was no one on set who told the child actor to make sure she’s getting food and water? Kid’s aren’t mind-readers. They need to be told to do things like eat and drink. That’s why there is snack time built into an elementary school schedule. They aren’t miniature adults, they are brand new humans who need to be shepherded by the adults around them. If no one on set can do that, then they should not be hiring children.
Asked about the stigmas around child stars, Ortega said: “Is it wrong to say that a lot of them are true? And do with that what you will.”
Another concern with Ortega’s comments are whether they are a kind of dog whistle about how little she can survive on. It would be part of a concerning trend of frail female celebrities who are publicly competing with each other about how little they eat. Ortega has appeared noticeably thinner in her most recent press tour, with her sister Aliyah telling commenters to mind their own business and leave her alone.
That a grown woman is still learning to look after herself tells you everything about who was supposed to be doing it back then. A kid who taught herself to disappear didn’t invent that instinct on her own — the adults around her rewarded it, or at least never noticed it. Ortega shouldn’t have to call not feeding herself her “mistake.” The mistake belonged to everyone who let a child believe her needs were an inconvenience, and until that changes, no set has any business hiring one.
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