Jenna Ortega is pretty sure she auditioned to play Chani in the Dune movies

Jenna Ortega is a huge star today — you'll soon be able to see her as Winona Ryder's daughter Astrid in the upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which is out next weekend — but just a few years ago, she a working actor hustling for auditions. Speaking to Buzzfeed, Ortega remembers auditioning for a role in Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies, although given all the secrecy surrounding the production she can't be 100% sure which role it was.

“I think I auditioned for ‘Dune’ when I was about 15,” said the 21-year-old Ortega. “I remember being a big fan of that film and that franchise and everything like that and being really excited for that interview because Denis [Villeneuve] is one of my favorite filmmakers.”

I will never cease to be amused that actors audition for roles without being told what the role is. I know studios want to keep details from leaking out, but won't it help the actor if they know something about the character? In any case, there's really only one role Ortega could have auditioned for. “I think it was Chani," Ortega said, referring to the Fremen warrior who becomes a love interest for lead character Paul Atreides. "I think it was Zendaya’s. But they weren’t saying that. Everything was very secret.”

Chani was introduced at the end of Dune: Part One, which came out in 2021. A year later, Jenna Ortega would absolutely blow up as the star of the Netflix series Wednesday, which has a second season in production. Euphoria star Zendaya is over five years older than Ortega, as is Timothée Chalamet, who plays Paul Atreides, so maybe the producers of Dune were looking for a closer match, age-wise.

Everything worked out, obviously. Jenna Ortega is one of the biggest new stars in Hollywood and Zendaya crushed it as Chani; she'll return as the character in Dune: Part Three, which is currently scheduled to come out in December of 2026. Wednesday season 2 will likely be out before that, probably sometime in late 2025. "For me, Jenna is what the show is," director Tim Burton told Total Film. "She’s the reason there’s a show...But the rest of the cast are all great. We have Steve Buscemi on this season, which is great, Thandiwe Newton and Billie Piper."

One big change in the second season is that Ortega will produce. "It’s so informative," she said. "There’s so many conversations that I had never been a part of before in terms of prosthetics, wardrobe, locations and things like that. It’s exciting. It’s different. It’s stimulating. I’m really fortunate to be in a line of work that I respect. And that’s just another side of it, which I’m curious about, and I would love to know more, and do more."

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h/t Variety