Jenna Ortega accepted the title role in Klara and the Sun because she wanted to “try something new”.

In the movie adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel of the same name, the Wednesday star plays Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend who is bought to keep a sick girl named Josie company.

During an interview with The New York Times, the 21-year-old explained that she wanted to play the robot because she’s “the complete opposite” of most of her other characters.

“Klara had just a pure, completely innocent, untainted optimism about her that you can’t find in a person of that age,” she shared. “Eventually you get older, and you’re a bit jaded or a bit scarred by certain things. You’ve learned a lot. You’ve maybe built a bit more of a wall. Klara didn’t have that wall, which is the complete opposite of a lot of the other characters I play where, you know, they hide who they are, or they don’t want their emotion to be seen. I just felt like it was a good place to be vulnerable and try something new.”

Ortega is best known for her work in the horror genre thanks to roles in the Scream franchise, X and Studio 666, and for playing dark and serious characters such as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix show Wednesday and Astrid Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

She told the publication that she was also inspired to take on the role of Klara after “a really great meeting” with the film’s director Taika Waititi.

Ortega shot the film in Waititi’s home country of New Zealand alongside Amy Adams, Natasha Lyonne and Simon Baker earlier this year before starting work on the second season of Wednesday. It does not yet have a release date.

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