Jenna Ortega gets candid about Hollywood’s beauty standards: ‘Have to change’

Jenna Ortega is being candid about her refusal to live up to conventional notions of Hollywood’s beauty.

In an online interview with Harper’s Bazaar on Wednesday, the Scream VI actress reminisced about the stress of auditioning while still striving for academic excellence in her earlier years.

“As a child actor, there are two jobs that you can get: you’re either the younger version of someone or you’re playing somebody’s daughter — and there were just not many leading Hispanic actors who I could be that for,” explained Ortega, who was born to parents of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.

“So a lot of the jobs that I was going for growing up would never work out, because I didn’t look [a certain] way. That was really hard, to hear that something you couldn’t change was what was preventing you [from succeeding].”

According to the YOU actress, the encounters and events had a detrimental effect on her self-esteem and confidence. She even acknowledged to the magazine that she had considered dying her hair blonde so she might resemble Cinderella.

But as time went on, she recovered her love for herself and saw the great impact she could have on others.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want other young girls to look up at the screen and feel like they have to change their appearance to be deemed beautiful or worthy,’” the Wednesday star said.

She nevertheless maintains her goal of using her position in the business to support a greater representation of Hispanics in movies and television.

“I want all people of Latin descent to be able to see themselves on screen,” Ortega said. “I want to feel that I could open doors for other people.”