Hi. I’m Jenna Ortega and I’m seven years old.
We have heard Jenna’s account many times before, about her discovering Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire and wanting to act since she was six years old. Also told with equal frequency is the story of Jenna’s “dramatic monologue” about a mother with cancer, posted to Facebook, seen by a casting director—and the rest was history. For those who don’t know about the start of Jenna’s career, here’s one version, told in an interview with WIRED in late 2022:
“I begged my mom for years. I first wanted to start acting when I was six years old. My parents said ‘No way in hell’. One day my mom got me this monologue book that she got from Barnes & Noble to shut me up. Like here—play. And I did a dramatic monologue for her where I was hysterically crying and she didn’t know where I was coming from or what I was talking about. And I told her, ‘This is from the monologue book that you got me. This is what you told me to do.’ She had me do it again and she put it on her Facebook and put ‘Ah, my little drama queen’, whatever. And I guess an old friend of hers from high school was good friends with a casting director. So she said ‘Just for a little bit.’ And now I’m twenty years old and I’ve been doing it for over half my life.”
Few fans have seen that dramatic monologue, and indeed I haven’t viewed the full performance myself. But I managed to find one video clip which includes part of it. It was at the beginning of an interview on the Tamron Hall show, recorded while Jenna was in New Zealand filming the movie X.
Note: In this clip, Tamron Hall incorrectly identifies Jenna as being nine-years-old when in fact she was only seven-years-old.
Even at that young age, Jenna’s budding talent shines through. It is even more poignant that she was able to convey such emotion while missing her two front teeth. For those who had trouble with the audio quality of the clip, I have provided the text of the monologue here:
Hi. My name is Jenna Ortega and I’m seven years old. Right now I’m going to show you my dramatic monologue.
Mom? Are you awake? What happened to your hair? It was there yesterday when you came home from the hospital. A wig? Daddy told me the doctors had cut some off. Why did they take it all? It’s scaring me.
If any fans can source a better (or longer) version of the monologue, let me know and I will post it here. This touching video deserves to be shared.
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