Director says Jenna Ortega 'scared the s***' out of her filming R-rated Martin Freeman movie

The director of Jenna Ortega's latest movie has spoken out about the Wednesday star's approach to her character, saying she 'scared the s**t' out of her.

For some reason, various people have it in their heads that Ortega must be the same age as Wednesday Addams after seeing her in the Netflix hit - the girl can barely light a cigarette without ending up the talk of the town on X.

Sure, if you see her as around 16-years-old, then spotting her in an X-rated scene with Martin Freeman is definitely going to be a bit of a shock to the system, but it wasn't actually the sex scene which caused director Jade Halley Bartlett to be 'scared the s**t out of'.

People were quick to flock to social media after seeing Ortega's sex scene with the Sherlock star in 2024 release Miller's Girl.

In the movie, Ortega stars as an 18-year-old writer named Cairo and Freeman plays her teacher Jonathan, with their relationship ending up crossing the line of strictly professional.

Granted, with Ortega being 21-years-old and Freeman aged 52, there's no denying there's a hefty age gap between the pair - but at the end of the day, they're actors.

Despite this, one social media user said: "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! Jenny Ortega, how dare you act such a scene. That's it, You are grounded, grounded, grounded, grounded, grounded, grounded, grounded until the next season of Netflix Wednesday Series."

However, it wasn't that particular scene but Ortega's approach to her character as a whole which got under the skin of director Bartlett.

Lionsgate

Speaking in an interview with What To Watch, Bartlett said Ortega actually 'scared the s**t out of' her.

"She definitely went to a place with Cairo that... it's even tricky to explain," she says.

Trying to put a finger on it, Bartlett reflected how Ortega's character 'thinks she is such an adult, but she's not,' really 'an isolated young woman' who is 'a ghost in her house'.

The director continued: "Her entire education about romance is from 18th and 19th-century literature and old movies, which are inherently problematic, right? But she thinks she is such a grownup."

Bartlett praised Ortega as being 'very disarming' and 'so special', as well as 'kind of gothic' herself.

"Jenna, I mean she's a savant. You watch her heart break in real-time and then you watch her calcify, you watch the scales grow over her and it's a very subtle thing that I think is quite terrifying.

"[...] And there are some moments that Jenna has when she is looking at Jonathan or when she is talking to him when she is like I almost believe… She's like a vampire, like a 900-year-old vampire.

Lionsgate

"There's something very ancient that she does that really scares the s**t out of me, excuse my language."

The director also revealed the scene that really surprised her, saying: "...the scene with Winnie when they are passing the bottle back and forth between them, where you watch her make a decision in that moment that really stunned me, because her physicality changes and then it's different for the rest of the film.

"Which is insane because obviously, we shot out of order. So Jenna's just, I don't know, extraordinarily intelligent. Almost everything she did surprised me, I have to be honest."

Miller's Girl is currently in cinemas in the US and will be available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from 19 February 2024.