Jenna Ortega’s New Movie Is A Career First For The Actor

MovieStillsDB Published Jul 20, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT Zoë Miskelly is an editor and second in command for Screen Rant's Movies team, having covered the entertainment industry for almost 10 years now. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Jenna Ortega's newly announced movie is a first for the actor and her career, despite it having already been a relatively extensive one given Ortega's first on-screen role was now a whole 14 years ago in 2012. Over the last few years, Jenna Ortega has become more and more of a popular actor, both because of her appearances in a range of major movies, and because she's the star of one of Netflix's most popular releases of all time, given she's Wednesday in the Netflix Wednesday show. As such, there is more interest than ever in what the actor's future will look like, and how her upcoming roles will match or contrast with her acting history thus far. Promisingly for fans, there's a lot to be excited about when it comes to Jenna Ortega's upcoming movies, with both Klara and the Sun and The Great Beyond looking like solid movies that will show off different sides of the actor's talents. Better yet, there is another new movie set to be added to the list of Ortega's upcoming releases. More interestingly still, said impending release looks set to break a major trend for Jenna Ortega's filmography thus far, since the movie is set to put the actor in a very different kind of film to the type of releases that audiences have been most conventionally used to seeing her in. Nasty Is Set To Be Jenna Ortega's First Sports Movie Image courtesy of Everett Collection News of Warner Bros. Clockwork's Olympics movie Nasty came with some major names attached, including Margot Robbie's production company LuckyChap helping producing the movie, and Jenna Ortega acting alongside Rose Byrne in the film's lead roles. Nasty focuses around a professional gymnast trying to make it onto an Olympic team, with their main issue doing so being that of their coach, adding some immediate conflict into the matter. Nasty looks set to be an exciting movie for a range of reasons, with one of the most immediately interesting being that it expands lead actor Jenna Ortega's film portfolio out further than we've seen before. While Ortega has appeared in a notable assortment of releases tonally and in terms of her roles within her various appearances, Nasty will be the actor's first sports movie, letting us see her on the big screen in a different capacity to what we've seen prior. Jenna Ortega's Horror-Focused Filmography Explains Why Nasty Is A Career First Since the vast majority of Jenna Ortega's history in the world of film and the world of television has been within the horror genre broadly speaking, it makes a lot of sense that Nasty is set to be the actor's first sports film, since these two concepts are usually at polar opposite ends of the filmic spectrum, barring sports horror movie exceptions such as 2025's Him. Though Ortega has had notable appearances in non-horror releases like Iron Man 3 and comedy-drama series Jane the Virgin, the vast majority of her roles have all been horror themed. Given many of these roles are also some of the actor's most well-known - like her castings in Scream and Scream VI, X, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and The Babysitter: Killer Queen - it's easy to see how this track record hasn't naturally lent itself to many sports film roles up until now. Similarly, since even many of Jenna Ortega's roles that weren't strictly horror-based have borrowed from the genre and delved into that territory at will - as is the case with Wednesday and its gothic leanings, and Over the Garden Wall and its own clear horror moments - the actor's filmography makes it all the more clear that Nasty breaks a convention of Ortega's history thus far, which should make the film all the more worth seeing when it releases. Birthdate September 27, 2002 Birthplace Coachella Valley, California, United States