The unsettling stare that made Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams an instant pop-culture icon apparently did not begin in Nevermore Academy. From Wednesday Addams to Tara Carpenter and Lorraine in X, Ortega has repeatedly gravitated toward characters who carry an unusual intensity beneath the surface. Her performances often turn a quiet glance, a nervous gesture or a strange pause into part of the character’s language. 

The interesting part is not simply that Ortega watched people. It is what she did with what she noticed.

Speaking on the April 8 episode of Big Bro with Kid Cudi, Jenna Ortega explained that the habit of staring right into people’s souls began long before Hollywood. The episode, which runs for just over an hour, focused on her acting process, Wednesday, her childhood and the ways she draws from real life when building characters. Ortega and Kid Cudi also had an obvious connection through Ti West’s X. 

“When I was younger I was always a creep, serious staring problem. Everyone is being looked up, down, sideways, like I know you so well from across the road”

“I’ve got this script in my hands right now where there’s a character who’s got an injury and is limping a bit, and a few weeks ago I saw someone with an injury limping a bit, and the whole time I’m just watching them walk up and down the street because I’m thinking, oh, okay, this is-”, she said. 

Jenna Ortega, who began acting at nine and moved from Jane the Virgin and Disney Channel’s Stuck in the Middle into You, Scream, X and eventually Wednesday, has built a career around characters who notice the things everyone else misses. Her performance as Wednesday Addams turned that quality into an international calling card, earning her major awards recognition and establishing her as one of the defining young faces of contemporary horror.

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For an actor, that is more like field research. Wednesday would probably approve.

The notebook confession also fits neatly into the next phase of Jenna Ortega’s career. After becoming synonymous with Wednesday and emerging as a modern scream queen, she has increasingly gravitated toward characters with stranger psychological textures. She also became a producer on Wednesday Season 2, expanding her involvement into scripts, casting, design and prosthetics.

Now comes The Great Beyond, J.J. Abrams’ mysterious new film with Glen Powell, Emma Mackey and Samuel L. Jackson. Ortega told Esquire that she plays a lost young woman arriving in a new city with a confusing history who becomes friends with Powell’s character. More intriguingly, the character is obsessed with one particular subject and becomes almost manic about it, something Ortega described as being “a freak in a different way.”

There is a funny symmetry here. Wednesday Addams watches the world because she is fascinated by what makes people strange. Ortega appears to have been doing something similar long before she put on the black dress and braided her hair.

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What do you think of Jenna Ortega’s strange childhood habit? Share your thoughts in the comments.