Jenna Ortega opens up about the OCD rituals she still lives with
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega opens up about OCD still shaping her on-set routine — and what, she says, can make its patterns even harder to ignore.
Everyone knows Jenna Ortega as the face of Netflix's Wednesday — and soon you'll be seeing her pop up in the upcoming film Klara and the Sun. But behind the camera, Ortega has been wrestling with something most fans don't get to see: a deeply embedded routine shaped by her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she's lived with since she was 7.
Ortega told Vogue, "I just bite the bullet and do the routine," when the urge to act on her OCD symptoms hits.
Back when she was a child, Ortega would wake up before her siblings every morning, just to carry out a careful circuit before school: her bedsheet needed straightening in a particular way, the drawer opened precisely so, and even brushing her hair had its own slow rhythm. She remembers her mind at that age as being crowded with "a lot of different trains rolling" all at once. Not exactly the easy-going childhood mornings most of us picture.
Patterns that Don't Quit
These rituals haven't dropped off as she's grown older. Speaking to Vogue (in a feature about Klara and the Sun, if you're keeping track), Ortega explained that she still finds herself repeating the phrase "take care" an exact number of times throughout the day. Before she sets foot on set, her left foot must go first, and she holds her breath to a count of 71. If the numbers or steps are off, her day feels wonky.
She told Vogue, "You have to breathe," describing how acting helps her focus past the rituals.
She's tried therapy and medication, but Ortega says what helps most is framing OCD as a bit of a game – a trick to take some weight off the rituals. Still, when she's in the grip of a particular compulsion, it's usually easier to give in and get it done. Apparently, acting often provides the kind of refocusing intensity her mind needs — with all that on-set pressure, she's too busy staying in the moment to let repetitive thoughts take over. Though she admits that anxiety, exhaustion, or jet lag can bring the routines roaring back, no matter how well she copes otherwise.
Years of Rituals
If you think this is just a mild quirk, it's worth knowing Ortega herself called her OCD "pretty intense" in another Vogue interview, back in August 2025. She talked about an elaborate, seven-year-long cycle of showering and dressing: counting while under the water, putting on clothes in just the right order — and if one thing went wrong, her whole day felt off. On a bad day, she explained, the cause might be as simple (and as maddening) as "the wrong sock on the wrong foot."
Ortega was diagnosed with OCD at only 7 years old.