‘You’: Jenna Ortega Would ‘Genuinely Get Scared’ of Penn Badgley
Jenna Ortega isn’t easy to faze. The talented 20-year-old has begun to earn the title of the scream queen of her generation thanks to projects such as Scream, X, and Wednesday. And Ortega seems to be pretty fearless off the screen also. She spent her childhood doing autopsies on dead animals and admits that people’s attempts to frighten her with real-life jump-scare moments were pretty fruitless. However, the actor admits that she occasionally felt real fear when she was acting opposite Penn Badgley in You.
Who did Jenna Ortega play in the ‘You’ cast?
Fans of You will recall that Ortega gave a standout performance in You Season 2. Portraying the teenaged, cinema-obsessed, Ellie Alves, her character was a great foil to Badgley’s Will Bettelheim, aka Joe Goldberg. Ortega loved playing the sassy teen and going toe-to-to with Badgley’s serial killer character. However, she admits that sometimes she felt genuine fear when acting opposite the Gossip Girl alum.
Why the actor was sometimes afraid of her co-star Penn Badgley
“There were also times where we would be shooting scenes, and I would genuinely get scared,” Ortega shared of Badgley while speaking with Popsugar about You. “Because when he is in it, he gets this look in his eyes, and I don’t think — I’ve never seen someone play the line of super sweet guy but also serial killer so nicely. He could go from charming to like I need to get out of this room right away just with his facial expression, which is so hard to do, but he kills it every time.”
Despite being frightened by Badgley’s portrayal of his character at times, Ortega adored working with the Easy A star. And it turns out the feelings were quite mutual. In fact, Badgley told The Fallout star that he often enjoyed working on scenes with her the most because it allowed him to touch into his character’s humanity.
Badgley was very complimentary of Ortega while working with her on ‘You’
“Penn actually told me, he said that some of his favorite scenes were the ones that he got to shoot with me because he finally felt like a human and not this disgusting representation of a man,” Ortega revealed about working on You. “Anytime he got to film with me, he said it was like relaxing for him because we have these nice, real organic moments.”
But Badgley also appreciated Ortega as an artist. Ortega admitted that when she first began working on You, she was extremely nervous. However, after Badgley paid her some compliments, she was able to relax a bit more and really enjoy the experience.
“After I did some reads with Penn, he looked at me and was like, ‘You know what? I am so charmed by you.'” Ortega remembered. “Right when he said that, I could just feel my body relax at last, and I was like, alright, it is going to be cool.” Clearly, Ortega and Badgley were very supportive of each other on the set of You. It’s no wonder that their characters had such great chemistry.
