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“The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen”: People Disturbed By Jenna Ortega And Martin Freeman’s Scene
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“The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen”: People Disturbed By Jenna Ortega And Martin Freeman’s Scene

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We all know Jenna Ortega from playing Wednesday in Netflix’s Addams Family spin-off, released in 2022. But the star takes on a completely different role in her latest film, Miller’s Girl, where her intimate scene with Martin Freeman is already causing a stir online.

In the dark-comedy drama, Ortega plays 18-year-old student Cairo Sweet, who becomes romantically entangled with her married English professor, Jonathan Miller, played by Martin Freeman.

Highlights
  • Jenna Ortega stars in a controversial role opposite Martin Freeman in 'Miller's Girl'.
  • Fans expressed discomfort over intimate scenes due to a 31-year age gap between Ortega and Freeman.
  • The film ignited a debate on the appropriateness of depicting relationships with significant age differences.

The pair enter into a complicated relationship following a creative writing assignment, leading Miller to risk his marriage and job to help Cairo.

In reality, Ortega is 21, and Freeman is 52, an age gap of 31 years.

Image credits: Lionsgate Movies

What most raised concerns online was an intimate scene between the two stars that many people deemed “inappropriate” and “disgusting.”

Someone took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to respond to the sex scene, writing, “Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman… I’m uncomfortable.”

Another user said: “This Jenna Ortega/Martin Freeman film is so gross! So, so, so, so gross!”

“Just saw a thread of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) groping Jenna Ortega in new show, strange times,” somebody else wrote on the platform.

In the film, Ortega plays 18-year-old student Cairo Sweet, who becomes romantically entangled with her married English professor, Jonathan Miller

Image credits: Lionsgate

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Image credits: Lionsgate Movies

Some users brought the stark age difference between the actors to the attention, remarking that “when Martin Freeman was in his 40s, Jenna Ortega was 10 years old.”

“That jenna ortega martin freeman clip might b the worst thing i’ve ever seen,” another fan complained.

Another X user wasn’t as disturbed by the scene, joking that the Hobbit actor “aged differently” than the rest of us.

“Everyone is freakin out abt [sic] this movie ‘Miller’s Girl’ because of the age difference,” they wrote on X.

“But really, Hobbits age differently than us. For every one year of our life, that equals three of theirs. So, in reality, Martin Freeman is only like 17 1/2. Jenna Ortega is the cradle robber.”

People have pointed out the 31-year age gap between both actors, labeling the sex scene “inappropriate” and “disgusting”

Image credits: Lionsgate Movies

Meanwhile, some have tried to normalize the relationship, reminding everyone that Ortega is 21 years old: “She’s not really Wednesday or a high school student. She’s an adult, and this was a scene for a movie.”

Plus, intimacy coordinator Kristina Arjona has revealed to the DailyMail that Jenna was involved in decisions about the curation of the racy moments, ensuring “it was consistent with what she was comfortable with.”

Ortega and Freeman’s wasn’t the first on-screen relationship with a significant age gap to leave viewers disturbed. 

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The award for the biggest age difference between romantic leads in a film goes to 1999’s Entrapment. In the film, a then 29-year-old Catherine Zeta-Jones played an investor for an insurance firm who got involved with Sean Connery, 68 at the time, who played a thief specializing in international art. 

The movie is currently being shown in US theaters

Image credits: Lionsgate Movies

“Miller’s Girl,” which runs for an hour and 33 minutes, currently has a score of 5,5/10 on IMDB.

Director, writer, and producer Jade Halley Bartlett recently praised Ortega’s performance in an interview with WhatToWatch, saying, “[Ortega] scared the s**t out of me. She definitely went to a place with Cairo that… it’s even tricky to explain

“There are some moments that Jenna has when she is looking at Jonathan or when she is talking to him when she is like I almost believe… she’s like a vampire, like a 900-year-old vampire.

“There’s something very ancient that she does that really scares the s**t out of me, excuse my language.”

She also said that she didn’t have the typical villain-victim dynamic in Cairo and Jonathan’s story.

“All of these characters, nobody is good or bad. I think both of these characters — having the perfect victim and the perfect villain, that’s boring, and it’s not real.

“The characters to me, through the development of this from a play to the screen, became so much richer because they are all the facets of real people.”

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Watch the trailer for “Miller’s Girl” below

Image credits: Lionsgate Movies

While the LA Times called the film “bad but entertaining” and “pure unintentional camp,” Variety wrote that Bartlett’s work “delivers a tale whose transgressions are stylish but disappointingly predictable.”

Ortega made headlines last year after dropping out of her role in Scream VII, reportedly due to scheduling conflicts.

However, some have speculated that the Emmy-nominated actress exited the horror franchise in support of her co-star, Melissa Barrera, who had allegedly been fired due to comments she made about the ongoing Israel-Palestine war on social media.

She will soon star in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the much-anticipated Beetlejuice sequel, a follow-up to Tim Burton’s 1988 cult classic.

The Warner Bros film is set to be released on 6 September 2024, with original stars Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton reprising their roles as Lydia Deetz and Beetlejuice, respectively.

“When Martin Freeman was in his 40s, Jenna Ortega was 10 years old,” someone wrote

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Marina Urman

Marina Urman

Writer, BoredPanda staff

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Marina is a journalist at Bored Panda. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she holds a Bachelor of Social Science. In her spare time, you can find her baking sweet treats, reading, or binge-watching a docuseries on Netflix. Her main areas of interest are pop culture, literature, and education.

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Marina Urman

Marina Urman

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Marina is a journalist at Bored Panda. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she holds a Bachelor of Social Science. In her spare time, you can find her baking sweet treats, reading, or binge-watching a docuseries on Netflix. Her main areas of interest are pop culture, literature, and education.

Karina Babenok

Karina Babenok

Author, BoredPanda staff

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As a visual editor in the News team, I look for the most interesting pictures and comments to make each post interesting and informative through images, so that you aren't reading only blocks of text. I joined Bored Panda not that long ago, but in this short amount of time I have covered a wide range of topics: from true crime to Taylor Swift memes (my search history is very questionable because of that). In my freetime, I enjoy spending time at the gym, gaming, binging Great British Bake Off and adding yet another tattoo artist that I would love to get a tattoo from to my pinterest board.

Read less »

Karina Babenok

Karina Babenok

Author, BoredPanda staff

As a visual editor in the News team, I look for the most interesting pictures and comments to make each post interesting and informative through images, so that you aren't reading only blocks of text. I joined Bored Panda not that long ago, but in this short amount of time I have covered a wide range of topics: from true crime to Taylor Swift memes (my search history is very questionable because of that). In my freetime, I enjoy spending time at the gym, gaming, binging Great British Bake Off and adding yet another tattoo artist that I would love to get a tattoo from to my pinterest board.

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martingibbs734 avatar
martin734
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow, some of the above comments are completely fuc*ing insane. Why all the backlash against Martin Freeman? He is an actor playing a fuc*ing fictitious role, he is not really having an affair with Jenna Ortega, they are not really having sex, they are acting. And even if they were having sex, so what? They are both intelligent consenting adults perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what is right and wrong.

ovanrem avatar
elmortero
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apart from that, 18 (or 21 as she in reality is) is a legal adult, so nothing wrong there. People seem to have no problem with very violent scenes, but anything intimate/sensual/sexual should be banned? Just because *you* are not comfortable with it (for whatever reason). No one forces you to watch it. I wanted to avoid country-naming but this seems to happen often in a certain country that is at the same time the biggest producer of explicit adult films

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aidenbrough avatar
Aiden Brough
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The film/TV role was to show an older man having sex with a younger woman (for whatever reason - I really can't be bothered to read any more into this). What did these people expect? A body double with Benjamin Button syndrome?

zeljkoklaric78_1 avatar
Bernd Herbert
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was thinking the same. The article states that the story is about a relationship between a student and her professor. Those two groups of people usually do have an age gap between each other.

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juliajuhas avatar
drew_11 avatar
Jo
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

People don't seem to understand how to separate fiction from reality these days

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martingibbs734 avatar
martin734
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow, some of the above comments are completely fuc*ing insane. Why all the backlash against Martin Freeman? He is an actor playing a fuc*ing fictitious role, he is not really having an affair with Jenna Ortega, they are not really having sex, they are acting. And even if they were having sex, so what? They are both intelligent consenting adults perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what is right and wrong.

ovanrem avatar
elmortero
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apart from that, 18 (or 21 as she in reality is) is a legal adult, so nothing wrong there. People seem to have no problem with very violent scenes, but anything intimate/sensual/sexual should be banned? Just because *you* are not comfortable with it (for whatever reason). No one forces you to watch it. I wanted to avoid country-naming but this seems to happen often in a certain country that is at the same time the biggest producer of explicit adult films

Load More Replies...
aidenbrough avatar
Aiden Brough
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The film/TV role was to show an older man having sex with a younger woman (for whatever reason - I really can't be bothered to read any more into this). What did these people expect? A body double with Benjamin Button syndrome?

zeljkoklaric78_1 avatar
Bernd Herbert
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was thinking the same. The article states that the story is about a relationship between a student and her professor. Those two groups of people usually do have an age gap between each other.

Load More Replies...
juliajuhas avatar
drew_11 avatar
Jo
Community Member
2 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

People don't seem to understand how to separate fiction from reality these days

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