Jenna Ortega is revealing the name of the Denzel Washington film that inspired her to start her acting career.
The Emmy-nominated actress, who has gone on to star in hit projects including the Scream franchise, You, Wednesday and the upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sequel, recently told Vanity Fair in a wide-ranging interview that it was 2004’s Man on Fire that “changed the entire course of my existence.”
“I’m so appreciative of my six-year-old self who wanted to be a president and an astronaut… because I realize now that I was always looking for a way out,” Ortega added.
The Tony Scott-directed thriller, starring Washington and Dakota Fanning, follows former CIA operative John Creasy who sets out on a revenge-fueled rescue mission after 9-year-old Lupita Ramos, a girl he was hired as a bodyguard to protect, gets kidnapped.
Ortega told Vanity Fair that after watching Fanning’s performance as a child, she instantly knew what career path she wanted to take, and it was the one headed straight to Hollywood. And after her mother posted a video of her performing a dramatic monologue on Facebook, which a family friend passed on to a casting director, she was finally being driven by her mom to L.A. for auditions.
However, it’s only recently that Ortega is starting to accept that her life is forever changed, and will most likely keep changing.
“There’s so much about the pressure that is put on this line of work that I do, that it’s laughable and it’s beautiful and it’s awful,” sometimes all at once, she added.