Jenna Ortega does not read her reviews. She told Vogue so for a new cover story, and Variety reported it this week. High Tea Magazine writes reviews and rankings, and we spend a lot of time reading reviews by other critics. Even so, we think she is right.
What Jenna Ortega said
According to Variety, Jenna Ortega told Vogue, for a new cover story, that she does not watch her own movies or read reviews. Reading them, she said, “would send me into a psychosis of some sort.” She also does not check the box office updates her team sends her, because “I don’t want it to become a numbers thing.”
Variety reported that she is on social media “less and less,” too. Her reasons, in her words: “so much of what you see on there nowadays is just garbage AI,” and “we all look at ourselves too much.” She also told Vogue that she recently broke her phone and did not get it fixed for a few days. She memorized routes from a map on her computer and told friends which café she would be at. “And that was so freeing,” she said.
Her new film, Klara and the Sun, opens in theaters today, per Variety. That is all we will say about it here. This column is about a habit, not a career.
Criticism is for the audience
The case for not reading reviews starts with a simple idea. A review is a letter to the audience, not to the artist.
A good critic is answering a reader’s questions. Is this worth my evening? What is it trying to do? Does it work? Those are useful questions for someone deciding what to watch. However, they are mostly useless for the person who made the thing. By the time a review runs, the film is finished. The actor cannot reshoot a scene because a critic in another city found it slow.
So the review is a public conversation that happens after the work is done. The artist is welcome to listen, of course. But nobody is required to attend.
Why reading reviews can hurt the work
There is also a practical problem. Praise and criticism both stick, and they stick in odd places.
A bad line in a review can become a voice in your head on the next job. A good line can do the same thing, and that is arguably worse, because it tempts you to repeat yourself. Either way, the next performance gets made for an imagined critic instead of for the story. Ortega’s phrase “a numbers thing” gets at this. Once a score or a gross becomes the goal, the work starts to bend toward it.
Meanwhile, the volume has changed. Reading reviews once meant a handful of newspapers. Now it means a feed with no bottom, mixed in with comments, clips and, as Ortega put it, a lot of “garbage AI.” Opting out of that is sensible.
Choosing who you hear from
Ortega is far from the first performer to step back from her own press. Some people never read notices at all. Others ask a friend or an agent to read them first and pass on only what helps. Either way, the person who makes the work protects it, and the public keeps talking.
The healthy version of skipping reviews means choosing who you hear from. A director, a coach or a colleague who knows the work can give useful notes. A stranger’s star rating, however fair, usually cannot.
Who should keep reading reviews
To be clear, we are not telling our readers to stop. If you are choosing a movie, a book or a restaurant, reviews are one of the best tools you have. That is why we write them. Our October watch list exists for exactly that reason.
And if you are a maker, reading reviews can still be useful, especially years later, when the work is finished and the sting is gone. In fact, that is often when criticism reads best: as history, not as a verdict.
The column’s verdict
Ortega’s rule is a good one for anyone who makes things. Do the work. Let the audience decide. Then go out and find a café without your phone.
We wrote recently about why stars keep dressing for the past on red carpets, in our essay on old Hollywood glamour. In a way, this is the same story. The public picture belongs to the public. The work, and the person who makes it, get to stay a little private. For more columns like this one, browse our Commentary section.