Jenna Ortega reveals she auditioned for Hereditary

Jenna Ortega has revealed that she auditioned for the 2018 horror movie Hereditary.

The Wednesday actress has established herself as a modern scream queen thanks to her roles in horrors such as X, Studio 666, The Babysitter: Killer Queen and two Scream movies.

However, she has now revealed that she could have made a major splash in horror a few years earlier, with Ari Aster's Hereditary.

Ortega, 23, shared on Kid Cudi's Big Bro podcast that she didn't "understand" the supernatural horror when she tried out to play Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne's 13-year-old daughter Charlie Graham.

"I didn't understand it, I was so young when it came in, but I think I auditioned for Hereditary, which obviously (I) wouldn't have made any sense for, especially, like, my disposition as a kid, so I understood," she told her X co-star, real name Scott Mescudi.

"I didn't know what I was looking at and they gave us barely any sides (pages from the script). It was like two pages of just ominous words that, as a 12-year-old, went over the head," she continued. "But I remember seeing it, looking at it, and thinking, 'I feel like this is an important movie,' and then it was."

Hereditary, which put Aster on the map, followed a grieving family that is haunted by tragic and sinister occurrences. The character of Charlie, who has a chilling on-screen presence, was ultimately played by Milly Shapiro.

Ortega then recalled her reaction to the film when she saw it in the cinema with her mum in 2018.

"I sat up in my chair and I looked at my mom, and I said, 'This is the one that I said was going to be (important),'" she remembered. "You know, we didn't even realise that (was what we were seeing). But (it's an) incredible movie. It's funny to think that I went in for that because again, I just didn't make any sense for it."

When Cudi admitted that he can be "really bitter" about parts he doesn't get, the former child star insisted that she has always taken rejection well.

"I never really question it. I didn't want to get in my head about that sort of thing, and what's meant to be mine will come to me," she explained. "Some things, I would just think, 'OK, well, whatever suits the project best.'"