Did you catch Jenna Ortega's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Iron Man 3? It's easy to forget her brief appearance as a young girl in a wheelchair. At just 11 years old, the now-22-year-old star of Netflix's Wednesday and the upcoming Beetlejuice 2 made her film debut in the 2013 Marvel blockbuster.
In the scene, Miguel Ferrer's Vice President Rodriguez, following a tense phone call with Iron Man, kisses his daughter on the forehead during a Christmas gathering. The camera then pans down to reveal his daughter, played by Ortega, is wheelchair-bound due to an amputated limb.
Recently, 12 years after Iron Man 3's release, Ortega jokingly reflected on her MCU experience with Entertainment Weekly, highlighting how much of her role was cut. "I did it once," she said. "It was one of the first jobs I ever did. They took all my lines out. I'm in Iron Man 3 for a quick second. I take up the frame, I have one leg and I'm the vice president's daughter."
Her Death of a Unicorn co-star, Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), playfully added to the conversation, suggesting Marvel might create a larger role for her in the future. "And so it might very well be that you come back," Rudd commented, "that they are going to create something for you, 'cause they should be so lucky to have Jenna Ortega in their franchise."
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Ortega, however, downplayed the experience, stating, "They even took my name away...I just...I count that, and then I move on." Her role, originally perhaps a more significant subplot, was ultimately reduced to a fleeting appearance.
Interestingly, this minor role involved a child actor who has since become one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood. Should Marvel offer her a new MCU role, it's certainly a possibility she would consider.
While Iron Man 3 is considered one of the weaker entries in the MCU, its box office success ($1.2 billion globally) solidified its place as the ninth highest-grossing superhero film of all time, surpassing films like Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Captain Marvel. The MCU landscape has significantly changed since then, and superhero films face greater challenges in achieving similar box office triumphs. Ortega's involvement in the current MCU could potentially boost Marvel's success.
The question remains: which MCU character would be the perfect fit for Jenna Ortega?
