SNL casts Jenna Ortega as exactly the X-Men member you’d expect
Jenna Ortega has been in a number of dark and twisty movies over the past few years: She did a tour of slashers with X, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Scream 5, and Scream 6, then over on TV there’s the second season of You, and of course the Netflix hit Wednesday, where her dance scene went viral. So it makes sense that when she was on Saturday Night Live on March 11, they would do sketches about none of those.
Instead they added to her array of roles as angsty teens trying their best: Rogue from the X-Men.
Technically in the SNL sketch she’s not playing Rogue — she’s Zena Nutrino, a psychic and student at the “Professor Zander’s Academy for Extraordinary Children,” who is angry she’s not with the team doing actual important things. Instead she’s stuck on the “School vs. School” quiz show squaring off against the exceedingly normal West Grove High students.
It’s not a fair fight — West Grove doesn’t have super powers, and Zena thinks the Shakespeare quote “to be or not to be” is from the character “Toby.” But unfortunately Professor Chandliss Zander says she has to play because she can’t control her powers just yet. While that may sound more like the Dark Phoenix, the prominent white streak and green and yellow ensemble (a la the Jim Lee relaunch look) is straight out of Rogue’s wardrobe. The general disdain for humans though? That’s all Ortega.
But rejoice, Wednesday fans! If you want a glimpse of Ortega revisiting the Wednesday dance, the Please Don’t Destroy boys got her to do it one more (last?) time.