Jenna Ortega speaks out on age-gap controversy with Martin Freeman in 'Miller's Girl'
The "Wednesday" star, 21, spoke with Vanity Fair about the backlash to the erotic thriller, in which she played a young student who becomes romantically entangled with an older teacher portrayed by Martin Freeman, 52.
Addressing the controversy over the 31-year age gap between the film's stars, the actress told Vanity Fair, "It's not supposed to be a comfortable movie. It's supposed to be awful at times."
She added, "Art isn't always meant to be pleasant or happy, and everyone skips off into the sunset at the end. We all have (expletive)-up experiences at one point or another."
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In the movie, Ortega starred as Cairo Sweet, an 18-year-old student who sets out to seduce her teacher Jonathan, played by Freeman. In one scene, Cairo writes a sexually explicit story, and as Jonathan reads it, he masturbates while thinking about them getting intimate.
The large age gap between the two stars sparked backlash when the film was released in January, but Freeman defended it in an interview with The Sunday Times in April. The "Hobbit" actor told the outlet that the movie was "grown-up and nuanced" and "not saying, 'Isn't this great.'" He also defended films about difficult subjects, asking, "Are we gonna have a go at Liam Neeson for being in a film about the Holocaust?"
Martin Freeman reflects on age-gap controversy with Jenna Ortega in 'Miller's Girl'
Amid the controversy, the intimacy coordinator for "Miller's Girl" gave an interview to the Daily Mail stating that Ortega was "comfortable" with the film. This interview appeared to inspire SAG-AFTRA to adjust its rules to state that intimacy coordinators must maintain the confidentiality of an actor's work.
In the Vanity Fair profile, the "Scream" star also addressed controversial comments she made about the scripts on her Netflix show "Wednesday."
SAG-AFTRA adjusts intimacy coordinator confidentiality rules after Jenna Ortega movie
On the "Armchair Expert" podcast last year, Ortega said she would sometimes change lines she didn't like on "Wednesday" and admitted this was "almost unprofessional" of her. She also criticized some of the writing on the show, saying, "Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all."
The comments sparked backlash as some argued the actress was disrespecting the show's writing staff, and they were frequently referenced in a joking way during the 2023 WGA strike. One sign from a picket line shared by Variety read, "Without writers, Jenna Ortega will have nothing to punch up!"
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Ortega admitted she could have worded her original comments better.
"I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that," she said. "I think, oftentimes, I'm such a rambler. I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would've been received better."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jenna Ortega speaks out on 'Miller's Girl' age-gap controversy
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