In the glittering, backstabbing arena of awards season, where legacies are forged in soundbites and statuettes, Jenna Ortega has just added another feather to her increasingly gothic cap. On December 8, 2025, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association unveiled the 2026 Golden Globe nominations, and there she was: the 23-year-old phenom, etched in gold for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy, courtesy of her razor-sharp turn as Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s Wednesday Season 2. It’s her second nod in the category—following her breakout debut in 2023—but this one feels like vindication, a resounding “told you so” to the doubters who whispered that lightning couldn’t strike twice in the same crypt. Ortega’s Wednesday isn’t just a character; she’s a cultural juggernaut, a deadpan dynamo whose blend of unblinking intensity, wry humor, and emotional undercurrents has catapulted the series into Netflix’s pantheon of all-time greats. As one X user quipped amid the frenzy, “Jenna Ortega just carried Season 2 on her braids alone—Golden Globe? More like Golden Addams.” With the ceremony looming on January 11, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton, this nomination isn’t just buzz; it’s a beacon affirming Ortega’s evolution from teen scream queen to thespian force majeure.

The announcement hit like a well-timed guillotine drop, sparking a social media storm that trended #JennaGoldenGlobe worldwide within hours. Ortega herself took to Instagram with her signature restraint: a simple black-and-white photo of her in full Wednesday regalia—braids askew, expression inscrutable—captioned, “Thank you very much for the kind honor @goldenglobes. I appreciate it. 🤍” The post racked up 2.5 million likes in the first day, a testament to her 40-million-strong follower base that’s hung on her every sardonic quip since the show’s 2022 debut. Co-star Hunter Doohan, who plays the perpetually lovelorn Tyler Galpin, amplified the love by liking Netflix’s official congrats post, while Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair) flooded her comments with heart-eyes emojis and “SHE DESERVES THE WORLD.” Fan reactions poured in like monsoon rain on a funeral: “Season 2 Wednesday is peak Ortega—funny, fierce, and finally fractured,” one Redditor raved in a thread that ballooned to 15,000 upvotes. Another X post summed it up: “From Emmy snub to Globe glow-up. Jenna, you’re the Addams we need in 2025.” It’s electric validation for a season that, while polarizing in its tonal shifts, undeniably orbits her gravitational pull.

To understand the weight of this nod, rewind to Wednesday‘s seismic Season 1 premiere on November 18, 2022. Directed by Tim Burton in a four-episode blitz that infused the Addams lore with his signature macabre whimsy, the series reimagined Charles Addams’ iconic waif as a psychic sleuth at the outcast haven of Nevermore Academy. Ortega, then 20, wasn’t just cast; she was reborn. Her Wednesday was a masterstroke: a girl whose emotional armor—forged from parental estrangement and a penchant for electrocution pranks—cracked just enough to reveal a vulnerable core. The deadpan delivery? Surgical. That viral cello solo in the school talent show, fingers flying across strings like vengeful spiders? Iconic. Critics swooned: CNN dubbed it “relentlessly strange, a portrait in unblinking intensity and oddly endearing all at once.” The numbers followed suit—1.7 billion viewing hours in its first week, making it Netflix’s second-most-watched English-language series ever, trailing only Stranger Things. It wasn’t just a hit; it was a phenomenon, spawning Addams-inspired fashion lines (those braids became a TikTok staple) and a soundtrack that topped charts with its brooding goth-pop anthems.

Ortega’s involvement went beyond lines and lenses. As a producer on the series—a rarity for someone her age—she clashed creatively with showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar over scripts, demanding more fidelity to Wednesday’s misanthropic roots and less teen rom-com fluff. “I will die before Wednesday does anything that feels inauthentic,” she declared in a 2023 Vanity Fair profile, a stance that reportedly led to reshoots and rewrites. Her advocacy extended off-set: pushing for Latina representation (her Mexican-Puerto Rican heritage infuses Gomez’s lineage) and ensuring the show’s supernatural ensemble reflected diverse outcast identities. That first Globe nod felt like a coronation, but whispers of an Emmy snub in 2023 stung—despite 12 nominations for the series, Ortega was overlooked for Lead Actress in a Comedy. “It was a bummer,” she admitted later, “but it fueled me.” Enter Season 2, premiering in a two-part drop on August 6 and September 3, 2025, and proving her fire unquenched.

If Season 1 was a gothic coming-of-age fever dream, Season 2 plunges deeper into the abyss, trading some of the debut’s campy sparkle for a moodier, more menacing vibe. Filmed across Ireland’s fog-shrouded castles—Charleville standing in for Nevermore’s labyrinthine halls—the eight-episode arc picks up post-cliffhanger: Wednesday, freshly expelled then reinstated, grapples with visions of a shadowy tormentor stalking the academy. Her psychic visions, once sporadic glitches, now erupt like seismic events, foreshadowing a family curse tied to Morticia’s enigmatic mother, Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley, all venomous velvet). The plot thickens with a fresh murder spree—this time implicating Nevermore’s new principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi, channeling oily eccentricity), and drawing in Pugsley Addams (Isaac Ordonez) as a bumbling freshman werewolf. Enid’s arc blooms into full lycanthrope glory, her pink-furred optimism clashing gloriously with Wednesday’s abyss-staring ethos, while Tyler’s Hyde curse lingers like a bad aftertaste, forcing Wednesday to confront her own monstrous impulses.

Ortega’s performance? It’s the season’s black heart, evolving Wednesday from detached observer to reluctant participant in the mess of human (and outcast) connection. Her deadpan humor sharpens to a stiletto: lines like “Optimism is a disease; I’m the cure” land with surgical precision, eliciting laughs that curdle into unease. But it’s the emotional depth that elevates her—those rare fissures where Wednesday’s stoicism splinters, revealing grief over her parents’ unraveling marriage or terror at her powers’ cost. In a pivotal mid-season vision sequence, Ortega channels raw vulnerability, her eyes—those endless black pools—conveying a storm of isolation that rivals her The Fallout heartbreak. Critics, once divided on the season’s “overcrowded” ensemble (hello, Lady Gaga’s enigmatic teacher Rosaline Rotwood and Christopher Lloyd’s madcap Professor Orloff), unite in praise for Ortega. The Hollywood Reporter noted, “Jenna Ortega gets lost amid Addams family mayhem? Hardly—she’s the map.” Variety hailed her as “lovably heartless,” crediting her for anchoring the show’s shift toward horror over humor. On Rotten Tomatoes, Season 2 holds a 78% approval, with audiences at 92%, many citing her “unforgettable presence” as the glue.

This nomination—her second Globe bid, alongside heavyweights like Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Jean Smart (Hacks), Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building), Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face), and Kristen Bell (Nobody Wants This)—arrives at a pivotal crossroads for Ortega. At 23, she’s no longer the child star who begged her way onto Iron Man 3 at age 10; she’s a Gen Z tastemaker, blending activism with artistry. Homeschooled to juggle auditions and algebra, she’s parlayed early Disney gigs—like leading Stuck in the Middle (earning an Imagen Award in 2018)—into a scream queen renaissance: Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023) cemented her slasher cred, while X (2022) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)—which grossed $451 million and snagged her a Saturn Award—proved her blockbuster bona fides. Her producing slate? Expansive: she’s attached to The Gallerist with Natalie Portman and helming a Winter Spring Summer Fall adaptation. Off-screen, Ortega’s a force—ambassador for Adidas and Dior, penning poetry collections like It’s All Love (2021), and championing immigrant rights and mental health, drawing from her own battles with OCD.

Yet Wednesday remains her North Star, a role that’s both blessing and beast. “It’s the character I grew up idolizing,” she told Elle pre-Season 2, “but I get to make her mine—flaws, fury, and all.” The series’ success—over 100 million views for Season 2 in its first month, entering Netflix’s all-time Top 10—has greenlit Seasons 3 and beyond, with Ortega teasing “darker, weirder” depths. Her Globe competitors? Formidable, but none match her cultural cachet: Edebiri’s chaotic charm, Smart’s veteran bite, Gomez’s meta-moxie. Still, Ortega’s edge lies in Wednesday’s zeitgeist grip—a Gen Z anti-heroine navigating identity, isolation, and the absurdity of adolescence amid supernatural snafus. As Lumley’s Hester intones in a chilling Season 2 vision, “Wednesday must die”—but on awards night? She’s very much alive, poised to haunt the stage.

As the nominations dust settles, Ortega’s nod feels like a full-circle moment. From that first Globe tease in 2023—when Wednesday snagged noms for Best Musical/Comedy Series but she walked away empty-handed—to this sophomore surge, it’s proof of her staying power. Fans on X are already campaigning: “Jenna for the win—Season 2’s vision scenes alone deserve it!” one viral thread declares, with 20,000 retweets. Whether she lifts the Globe or not, Ortega’s trajectory soars: a Latina trailblazer (third youngest ever Emmy-nominated, first since 2007), redefining horror-comedy for a TikTok generation. In a town that chews up ingenues, she’s the exception—the girl with the braids who stares down the abyss and quips back. Wednesday Season 2 didn’t just earn a nomination; it etched Ortega into eternity. And as she might say, with a faint, feral smile: Thing is, the fun’s just beginning.