Jenna Ortega learns one ‘weird’ habit for new role

Jenna Ortega revealed the secret behind playing Klara.

Jenna is starring in the upcoming sci-fi, Klara and The Sun as Klara who is a solar-powered robot., while Taika Waititi served as a director. Notably, the story is based on Kazuo Ishiguro's famous novel.

Recently, speaking with People Magazine, the lead actress revealed the inspiration behind her character's child-like clumsiness, saying, “Taika, very early on in the process, likened Klara to a baby or a toddler.”

“The clumsiness was inspired by my nieces and nephews,” Jenna told the outlet.

She went on to say, “And then I just was kind of bored,” adding, “I wanted to do something different because this is a very different character from anything I had played before.”

However, she didn’t only take inspiration from her nieces and nephews but learned a “weird” habit from one of her friends, stating, “I have a friend who kind of walks with her pinkies up.”

“I call her glass hands … I had always wanted to do something like that so I just reversed it. I did index fingers up,” Jenna shared further.

As the director is also part of the conversation, Jenna addressed him, by saying, “You had said something about sensors in Klara’s body, so I just kind of used that as general E.T. fingers or something, and then it all went from there. It was just a collection of, pretty much, people that I knew.”

Meanwhile, Taika had plenty of praise for the Wednesday star, “It was just a cool opportunity to work with someone who’s smart and good and really brought so much to the role.”

“People can try and do what she was doing in this film and overcook it and it just gets away on them and it becomes really stupid. But this was grounded and stayed emotional, and I think that’s what endears you to the character,” Taika acknowledged.

It is pertinent to mention here that the movie is set to hit theaters on October 23, 2026.