Jenna Ortega remembered the late actor Cameron Boyce supporting her during an uncomfortable audition. Speaking to her “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” co-stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara during an interview for French outlet Canal+ (via People ), Ortega said she was having a hard time during the audition because was supposed to kiss Boyce during it. They were not only friends, but they were also teens at the time. Boyre died in his sleep in 2019 at 20 years old after having a seizure.
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“The last time I saw my friend Cameron Boyce — I’d known him since I was like 11 or 12, and we were supposed to kiss [in an audition] and he knew me, since I was 11 or 12,” Ortega told her co-stars. “This is a few years later, 15 or 16, we came in and we were supposed to be love interests. But because he obviously felt weird and he was a bit older, he was like — we both just kinda looked at each other and we were like, ‘No, we can’t do this.'”
“He was so sweet because I was uncomfortable and I was having a hard time,” Ortega added, noting that she was “really thankful and grateful” that Boyce spoke up during the audition and put her comfortability above landing the job. “And then, we wished each other well.”
Earlier this year, Boyce’s parents told People that it “means everything” to them when his friends and former colleagues share stories about the late actor because “they still keep his legacy alive” and “people still want to hold onto him. They don’t want him to be gone.”
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Ortega and other actors have spoken up recently about the uncomfortable auditions they were put into as young actors. Anne Hathaway, for instance, told V Magazine in the spring that chemistry tests have come a long way since her auditioning days in the 2000s.
“Back in the 2000s — and this did happen to me — it was considered normal to ask an actor to make out with other actors to test for chemistry, which is actually the worst way to do it,” Hathaway said. “I was told, ‘We have 10 guys coming today and you’re cast. Aren’t you excited to make out with all of them?’ And I thought, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ because I wasn’t excited. I thought it sounded gross.”
“I was so young and terribly aware how easy it was to lose everything by being labeled ‘difficult,’ so I just pretended I was excited and got on with it,” Hathaway continued. “It wasn’t a power play, no one was trying to be awful or hurt me. It was just a very different time and now we know better.”
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