With Dan Levy’s new comedy series Big Mistakes finally hitting Netflix, you can’t help but be enraptured by star Taylor Ortega.
The Out cover star is rising to fame in Hollywood after more than a decade of working in the industry. It’s finally her time to shine, and she’s making the most of it.
Big Mistakes isn’t the first time the queer actor has put her comedic chops to the test; she has been making fans laugh for years in shows like Welcome to Flatch, Ghosts, and even an episode of What We Do in the Shadows.
So who is this funny lady who is capturing the attention of fans who are just now discovering her, thanks to her starring role in Big Mistakes?
Who is Taylor Ortega?
The 36-year-old star grew up in New Jersey in a family full of big personalities. Her parents were strict, but her father is partially responsible for her love of movies, introducing her to some less-than-age-appropriate fare at a young age, like Reservoir Dogs and Saturday Night Live.
After attending Columbia University, she started her career in entertainment by making people laugh in New York’s improv scene. She ended up putting those improv skills to work with her first big break in Paul Feig’s mockumentary sitcom Welcome to Flatch before she started getting offered bigger and bigger roles that would eventually lead her to starring alongside Levy.
Ortega, who is queer, spent much of her early twenties dating men who weren’t right for her before she got honest with herself about her sexuality. The actress admitted to Out that in this way she related to her Big Mistakes character who wants to break up with her boyfriend.
"A really common form of queer thought that a lot of people develop really young is having to double-think constantly. You’re accepting a truth of like, ‘And then eventually, I’ll live the same normal way everyone else is living, where I’m not double-thinking and I’m not doing these laps,'" she says.
What has Taylor Ortega been in before?
Ortega started getting acting roles in 2014, but it would be a few years before she started booking regular jobs. She scored a one-episode role in Succession in 2018 before landing the Kim Possible television movie, an episode of Party Down, and eventually a starring role in Welcome to Flatch.
Since then, she’s been in Jackpot! alongside John Cena and Awkwafina, and the sequel film Another Simple Favor with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick before landing her biggest role yet in Big Mistakes.
Who does Taylor Ortega play in 'Big Mistakes'?
The new Netflix comedy series, created by Levy and Rachel Sennott, follows a pair of siblings who become unwittingly entangled with a criminal organization after a misguided necklace theft.
In Big Mistakes, Ortega plays Morgan, Levy’s sister, who is a New York City public school teacher living back in her hometown with the boyfriend she’s outgrown. When Morgan steals a necklace while shopping with her gay pastor brother (Levy), they end up indebted to the wrong people. It’s this crime-heavy plot line that propels the plot forward, along with the loving, if acerbic, relationship with her brother.
Morgan is faced with a proposal from the boyfriend she has clearly outgrown, several times over the course of the show, something that Ortega says a lot of straight women recognize as feeling authentic because their partnerships are often "not really what they would choose for themselves."
Ortega continues, "She sees the ring, and it’s sort of like…this is a really nice version of [that] life. Am I crazy for not wanting this? Am I just the most difficult person alive? I think that that’s a really common feeling too. I felt that 100 million times."
