Emmys: Jenna Ortega Makes History With First Nomination

Esther Zuckerman
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With her 2023 Emmy nomination for Netflix’s Wednesday, Jenna Ortega becomes the second-youngest nominee for best lead actress in a comedy.

Ortega, at 20, is only older than Patty Duke, who was 17 at the time of her Emmy nomination in 1964 for her eponymous series, The Patty Duke Show. While The Patty Duke show was a sitcom, Duke was nominated before the Emmys split the actress race between comedy and drama. At the time, it was an award for “Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Series.”

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Ortega, a Gen Z horror staple in films like Scream and X, broke out as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix comedy about the classic misanthrope created by Charles Addams, the first four episodes of which were helmed by Tim Burton (who will also direct Ortega in the upcoming sequel to his 1988 film Beetlejuice). The series mostly removes Wednesday from her famous family and drops her into Nevermore Academy, where she is a misfit among a horde of otherworldly teens. Duke, meanwhile, starred as “identical cousins” in her show, which ran for three seasons. By the time Duke received that Emmy nomination, her first of nine, she had already won an Oscar for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.

If Ortega wins, she’ll overtake America Ferrera as the youngest victor in the category. Ferrera won for Ugly Betty in 2007 at the age of 23, when she also became the first Latina actress to achieve that recognition. (Ortega is also Latina.)

In 2020, Zendaya became the youngest lead actress in a drama series winner at the age of 24 for her work in Euphoria. She won again two years later.

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