Jenna Ortega Just Said She Is Done With TV After Wednesday, and Her Reason Hits Hard for Anyone Who Watched Her Grow Up

Jenna Ortega just dropped the kind of news that makes an entire fandom freeze mid-scroll. The 24-year-old star of Netflix’s Wednesday has revealed that once her run as Wednesday Addams finally comes to an end, she plans to walk away from television altogether.

It is not a dramatic exit. It is not a feud or a breakdown. It is something quieter and, honestly, much more relatable. After spending practically her whole childhood hopping from one TV set to another, Ortega says she wants her adult years to look different.

What she actually said

Ortega made the confession during an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, released Thursday. When asked whether she might sign on to another big franchise down the road, she was strikingly honest.

“I actually haven’t had a lot of franchise conversations. I haven’t,” she said. “But what I’m meant to do will come and find me. I think after ‘Wednesday,’ I’ll probably be off the TV for a while.”

She paused on the reason, and it clearly runs deep. “You know, I had many years doing that. I was bouncing from show to show as a kid, this to this, and I want to leave time for new things.”

There is no big retirement announcement here. Ortega is not quitting acting. She is doing something that, at 24, is both brave and smart: deciding what she wants her career to feel like before the machine decides for her.

She spent her whole childhood on television sets

To understand why this matters, you have to remember how long Ortega has been doing this. She did not arrive with Wednesday. She grew up in front of the camera.

She played young Jane on Jane the Virgin. She carried the Disney Channel comedy Stuck in the Middle. She survived the Scream franchise, taking on Ghostface not once but twice. She had a memorable turn on Netflix’s You. She even had a brief appearance in Iron Man 3 as a kid. Add in her standout performance opposite Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and the resume is honestly ridiculous for someone who just turned 24.

That is the context behind her quote. When she says she was “bouncing from show to show as a kid,” she is not exaggerating. Most child actors get one lucky break. She got a whole career before she could legally order a drink.

Do not panic: Wednesday is not ending yet

Here is the part fans should read twice. Ortega did not say Wednesday is ending. Netflix has not announced the third season as the final one. The show is not going anywhere for now.

Season three wrapped production in September, with Netflix cheekily announcing it had “met its grave.” The new season is expected to premiere in 2027, and it looks like the biggest one yet. Winona Ryder, her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice co-star, is joining the cast alongside Eva Green. Luis Guzman returns as Gomez, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, and Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley.

The upcoming season reportedly puts Wednesday in her senior year at Nevermore Academy, with a story that takes her on an international hunt to rescue her roommate Enid, played by Emma Myers, in Paris. So the coffin, as it were, stays open.

The numbers explain why Netflix will not let this one go quietly. Wednesday, created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and directed by Tim Burton, premiered in 2022 and quickly became the number one most popular English-language show on Netflix of all time. The first season spent 20 weeks on the Global Top 10. The second season was a worldwide sensation as well, ranking sixth on the global list. The show has collected four Emmys to date, with Ortega herself earning an Emmy nomination for the role.

Even Ortega admits she is still “a little confused” by the scale of it all, saying it felt like “some sick mind game” the first times strangers recognized her as the deadpan goth girl. She built one of the most recognizable TV characters of the decade, and she is still processing it.

What comes next looks like film, not TV

So where does that leave her? Everything Ortega has said points in one direction: the big screen.

Her next role is in Klara and the Sun, which premieres October 23. The pattern of recent years backs this up. While she kept one foot in the streaming world, her most talked-about work has increasingly been in cinemas: the Scream films, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and now her upcoming film slate. The takeaway is simple. She does not want to retire. She wants to choose film sets over soundstages, new characters over familiar ones, and her own pace over the relentless churn of series television.

There is also a telling detail in her podcast answer. When asked about franchises, she did not rule anything out with anger or exhaustion. “What I’m meant to do will come and find me,” she said. That is not the language of someone who is done. It is the language of someone who finally trusts herself enough to wait for the right thing.

Why this lands differently

Hollywood stars announce career pivots all the time, and most of them vanish within a week. This one sticks because the reasoning is so honest. Ortega is not chasing a bigger paycheck or running from a bad headline. She is simply a young woman who worked through her entire childhood and wants to spend her twenties trying new things instead of repeating old ones.

It is also a sign of how much power she holds right now. Walking away from television at the height of your TV fame is not something you do unless you can afford to bet on yourself. After Wednesday, she clearly can.

For now, the Addams family business continues. Season three arrives in 2027, Enid needs rescuing, and Wednesday Addams will keep deadpanning her way through Nevermore. But when the last episode finally airs, do not expect Jenna Ortega to sign up for another series anytime soon. She has already told us what comes next: something new, on her own terms.

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Sources: Page Six | Just Jared