Scene Stealer

JENNA ORTEGA, DIOR BEAUTY’S NEWEST AMBASSADOR AND GEN Z HAUTE-GOTH, ON THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MAKEUP

WORDS BY ALEXANDRA ENGLISH

Jenna Ortega wears Dior Beauty Rouge Dior On Stage lipstick in 390 Redwood Star.

Jenna Ortega doesn’t want to be seen. It’s counterintuitive for an actor, you’d think, to not want to be looked at, especially one who’s become a gen Z icon and worked prolifically since they were a child. But her desire to go unnoticed is exactly why she chose a career in the spotlight: by shrugging off her own identity to slip into a character’s skin, she — as in Jenna Ortega — can disappear completely.

One of the best disappearing techniques she’s found is through a character’s makeup. Just as stepping into a costume signals the moment of becoming someone else, so too does makeup help an actor leave their true self behind. “When you’re trying to turn into somebody else and experience somebody else’s life, or you want to feel yourself disappear, makeup is almost just as important as their outfit,” Ortega says. “That’s helpful when you want your characters to stand out and have their own personalities. Makeup is about representation, and everybody represents themselves differently. Once you realise that, you begin to understand a lot more about the character.”

It even goes beyond the makeup itself to the way a character applies it. “Makeup is something you apply in your own way: some people use their fingers, and some people use brushes. That says a lot about a person’s qualities or what is important to them, so it’s a major deal,” she explains. “I always love when I can get on set and play [around with the makeup], understanding when something’s not right because maybe it’s been given too much care or attention, or maybe the makeup needs more attention and more intricacy. It’s fascinating to me. Sometimes a makeup artist will let me do my own makeup, and because it’s just before going on set, it helps me get into the mood of the character.”