If you don’t know the name Taylor Ortega yet, you’re about to. The actress, writer, and comedian is starring opposite Schitt’s Creek creator-star Dan Levy in the new Netflix crime-comedy series Big Mistakes, arriving April 9.
The duo play siblings—a New Jersey pastor (Levy) and an elementary-school teacher (Ortega)—who accidentally get blackmailed into the world of organized crime after an attempt to steal a necklace for their grandma goes wrong. Levy, who also co-created the series, says this is just the beginning of big things for the actress who's spent years cultivating her comedic chops on screen and online.
"Taylor Ortega is going to become a household name," he told Tudum.
Article continues belowBefore she steals your attention in Big Mistakes, read on to learn more about Ortega. (And before you ask, no, she’s not related to Wednesday star Jenna.)
Morgan (Taylor Ortega) and Nicky (Dan Levy) wait in the back of a truck.
Taylor Ortega grew up in New Jersey, just like her 'Big Mistakes' character
Ortega, 36, was born and raised in New Jersey, and she credits her home state with helping her develop her comedic sensibilities.
"Everyone there is kind of funny," she told WWD. "And it’s a very expressive place. Humor is a way that everyone communicates in New Jersey. My whole family is very funny. Everyone was a very big character."
It just so happens that her Big Mistakes character, Morgan, also hails from the Garden State—which made it that much easier to understand the woman she got to play. "I think Morgan is a bit of a past version of myself in many ways," she explained to WWD. "I wouldn’t say beat for beat, but she’s definitely struggling this season and spending a lot of time living at home, spending a lot of time back with her family, who she tried to escape. She’s low vibrational at times. And many times she’s vibrating love, but we all have that side to us. And at times, that side is taking the reins 24/7. And so she was very fun to play."
Ortega, who is queer, also shared in an interview with Out that she saw parallels in the series’s themes of characters living double lives. "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 noted.
She started building her career in New York City, doing improv and more.
Ortega eventually moved to N.Y.C., where she waited tables while also immersing herself in the local improv scene. That world, she told Starry Mag in 2022, "was my original avenue into comedy and live performance." That’s also where Big Mistakes co-creator Rachel Sennott (I Love LA) first met Ortega, according to Out.
In addition to her improv and comedy work, Ortega racked up various acting and hosting jobs in those early years: The first job she booked was a hosting gig where she rode a bus across the country. In 2019, she was a New Face at Just For Laughs, the world’s biggest comedy festival, where NPR called her a "standout." She also auditioned for Saturday Night Live three times in a single year, as she explained in a 2024 podcast interview.
"You tell your creative friends, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to work again.’ And they tell you, 'Don’t worry, you’ll work again.' A pattern emerges," she told WWD. "A pattern of you doing work emerges, a pattern of creating your own work emerges. And I think then that starts to make you feel more secure."
She stayed true to those roots even as she began stepping into more TV and film work. In 2024, for example, she created and starred in a multi-part "improvised series" called Long Lost, which you can check out on her Instagram feed.
Morgan and her fiancé, Max (Jack Innanen), attend a baby shower.
Ortega then moved into TV and film, with roles in 'Succession,' 'Kim Possible,' and more.
The actress began moving into TV work around 2018, starting with a role in a season 1 episode of Succession. The following year, she appeared in the Disney Channel live-action remake of Kim Possible as Shego, the villainous accomplice of Kim’s nemesis, Drakken.
She played Shego one more time in the 2019 miniseries Kim Hushable and has made appearances in episodes of Love Life, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts, and The Four Seasons. She also landed a main role on Welcome to Flatch, a mockumentary sitcom about the residents of a small Midwestern town that ran on Fox, as Nadine Garcia-Parney, who runs the Flatch Historical Society. The series aired from 2022 to 2023, but was canceled after two seasons.
At the same time, over the last few years, Ortega had an uncredited role in the Ilana Glazer-starring psychological horror film False Positive, and appeared in both the lottery comedy Jackpot! , with John Cena and Awkwafina, and in the 2025 sequel Another Simple Favor, in which she played an FBI agent who trails Anna Kendrick’s Stephanie. All of which led up to her biggest role yet, in the Netflix original Big Mistakes.
Nicky and Morgan are kidnapped by Yusuf (Boran Kuzum).
She was the first person to audition for 'Big Mistakes'—and one of the last.
Levy and Ortega both recall her audition process being long because she had the unfortunate luck of being the first person to read for the role, and then had to play the waiting game. "You don’t want to be the first person in the [audition] room. When you’re seeing 250 people—it was a lot of people—it gets muddled," Levy explained to the Los Angeles Times.
Still, Ortega proved memorable, and after submitting a second audition tape, it became clear she was the right person to play Morgan, New Jersey roots and all.
“It had been like six months [between auditions]. “I was in a different place in my life. When I first auditioned for this, I thought, ‘This is a very good fit.’ It doesn’t mean that it’s my job, but it would be the best choice to pick me,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Very rarely do you think, ‘I could do the best job at this,’ and get to do the job.”
Landing the role was an unforgettable moment for Ortega, but not just for the reason you’d expect: In addition to the big break for her career, she also revealed on Instagram that right after Levy called her to break the news, she tripped and fractured her elbow.
Morgan and Nicky at a party.
Ortega and the 'Big Mistakes' cast formed a tight-knit bond while filming.
Levy and Ortega easily found chemistry playing siblings, as the series co-creator shared in an interview with CBS: “You either have it with somebody, or you don't, and she is brilliant.”
In fact, he said the full cast (which also includes Laurie Metcalf as their mother) has a “familial camaraderie” that felt essential to their behind-the-scenes dynamic—a feeling similar to what he experienced working on Schitt’s Creek.
“I never thought I would be able to re-create that dynamic again,” he revealed to Out.
And again, had high praise for Ortega, who stepped into a role she seemed destined for: “To me, there’s no greater joy than watching an actor who has been working but not gotten that starring role, walk into something that’s so tailor-made,” he told the Los Angeles Times, catching himself in the pun.
In that same interview, Ortega also appreciated how cosmic it all seems. “It’s one of those classic lucky breaks where you do something for like 10, 15 years, and then the perfect thing comes along.”