Jenna Ortega Recalls Limping off the "Iron Man 3" Set After Her First Movie Role

She spent an entire day in a wheelchair rather than miss a second of the magic, and her leg paid the price. The “Wednesday” star shares the funny story behind her tiny Marvel debut at age 9.

You may not remember her, but Jenna Ortega’s first movie role was in the film “Iron Man 3” when she was just nine. The young star was thrilled to be on set, until she tried to stand up at the end of the day.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the “Wednesday” star looked fondly back on her 2013 film debut, where her character, a relative of the vice president, used a wheelchair. She said she was so thrilled to be in the movie that she never bothered to get out of the chair.

“I didn’t want to move because, again, I was so happy to be an actor and to be a character that I just kinda stayed in the wheelchair all day,” she said.

But that proved to be the wrong move, as Ortega recalled, “When I went home, I was limping to the car.”

Since her character was missing a leg, Ortega had to sit on one leg for hours, and by the end of the day, she said it “felt like television static” running through her leg. “You know when your leg falls asleep and it’s that weird feeling? I almost fell on my face getting out of the wheelchair,” she recalled.

The role was a major milestone for the young actor. “I was so happy to be in a movie, I had been begging my mom for years [before] she finally let me start auditioning,” she shared. “It was one of the first things I ever went out for. Booked it, was thrilled.”

Ortega knew it was a big deal because her brothers knew who Iron Man was. Though she appeared in the final edit for just a few seconds, and her speaking lines were cut, her character still played a part in the plot, hinting at the vice president’s ties to the movie’s villains.

For Jenna Ortega, it wasn’t about how long she was on the screen. “The fact that I even got to sit there and have that experience and really live in the take was exciting to me,” she said.

Her “Klara and the Sun” director, Taika Waititi, joked that the movie “gave her arterial damage in the leg that she’s never healed from,” to which Ortega deadpanned, “It’s never been the same.” In a way, things truly were never the same for the actress, who went on to land much bigger roles.

She played young Jane on “Jane the Virgin,” starred in the Disney Channel series “Stuck in the Middle,” and joined the second season of Netflix’s “You.” She also became a horror favorite, with roles in ‘X’ and two ‘Scream’ movies. (Variety) But it was her role as Wednesday Addams in “Wednesday” that made her a global star. It became Netflix’s most popular English language series and earned her Emmy and SAG Award nominations.