Jenna Ortega went ‘all day without eating and drinking’ on set as child star

Jenna Ortega used to "go all day" without eating or drinking on set as a child star.

The 23-year-old actress, who started her career in the early 2010s with appearances in the likes of Rob, Days of Our Lives and Insidious: Chapter 2 before breaking out in You, Scream and Wednesday, has revealed "one mistake" she made during her early roles.

She told Esquire magazine: “As a child, I was so grateful and so excited to be there that my game face was on.

“I wasn’t asking for a sip of water. I would go all day without eating, drinking, whatever, because I wanted so badly to not be in the way of anybody.

"Maybe that was my mistake, was not actually looking after myself.”

Her debut role came in sitcom Rob at the age of nine in 2012, while she landed big screen parts in Iron Man 3 and Insidious: Chapter 2 the following year.

Jenna revealed it was two years earlier when she told her parents about her dream of becoming an actress.

She recalled: "I was 7 years old when I said I wanted to do this.

"My parents laughed at me when I told them that I wanted to do it, and then that was kind of the root of everything. The motivation.

"And I never really stopped, because I’m very stubborn. And then I never questioned it.”

Jenna admitted fellow child star Dakota fanning as the one to inspire her dream.

She added: “As a young girl, to see a young girl with so much, it felt like wisdom, like she had lived and walked this planet many times before.

"She kind of taught me what an actor even was when I was a kid.”

Despite knowing what she wanted, Jenna considered walking away from her career on screen before she was cast as Ellie Alves in the second season of Netflix thriller You.

She previously told Kid Cudi's Big Bro podcast: "I didn’t know what else I was gonna do. I’ve never really considered anything else, more so recently, just out of sake of curiosity and wanting another life experience.

"But when I was a teenager, I’d gotten off a children’s show, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to prove myself and meet all these new casting directors who didn’t know who I was.

“It just felt like a good time to call it quits if I was going to. I was starting high school, and, ‘it was a good run’ sort of thing."

Jenna got as far as spending "a few months" chatting about the situation with her team, but You was enough to change her mind.

She recalled: "We had talked about it for a few months with my team.

"And then, I think I booked that show You, and then I went on that set, and I loved it and had the best time. I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s no way I could let this go.'”