Jenna Ortega has spoken out about how much she enjoys playing strong female roles on TV ahead of her return to Scream.
The 20-year-old received great acclaim for her role as Wednesday in the massively popular Netflix series, in which she played the Addams family’s oldest kid.
She also won over horror fans in the slasher franchise as Tara Carpenter, with Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Courteney Cox, and Hayden Panettiere.
Jenna spoke to Metro.co.uk ahead of the March 10 release of Scream 6 – or Scream VI – and couldn’t help but compliment the roles she gets to play and the work that goes into each film.
‘It’s the best, I have an unreal job,’ she began. ‘I pinch myself [at] the fact that I get to go to work and do the things I do.
‘I only ever want to play empowering characters… I guess that’s not necessarily true, sometimes it’s fun to play the annoying little wimpy, whatever…
‘But I think it’s cool because the characters that I have played that are badass have so much dimension, have so much to them. They’re capable of so much more than people initially give them credit for.
‘So, I think it’s always really exciting for me to be able to dig into a script or dive headfirst into the experience on set and really just do all that I can to make these people multifaceted and genuinely interesting individuals outside of their abilities, or outside of heroic acts that they may partake in.’
Jenna, who successfully defeated Ghostface in Scream 5, will return to the big screen in the sixth installment of the franchise, as the masked murderer pursues the Woodsboro gang once more.
Tara and her friends Mindy and Chad – portrayed by Jasmin and Mason Gooding, respectively – travel to New York for college, with her protective sister Sam (Melissa) accompanying them.
Of course, it doesn’t work out since Ghostface joins them in New York, along with Courteney’s original Gale Weathers and Hayden, who made a surprise return as the adored Kirby Reed.
Jenna stated to Entertainment Weekly that Tara had to multitask attempting to evade the killer’s knife while simultaneously dealing with her’suffocating’ brother.
‘At the top of the film we see my character Tara avoiding her trauma and desperately trying to reclaim her teenage experience and become normal college student,’ she said.
‘There’s a lot of tension between her and Sam, she feels as though she’s too protective and unwilling to allow them both to move on. She feels suffocated.’
Scream 6 is in cinemas on March 10.
