Jenna Ortega responds to backlash to her controversial age-gap movie with Martin Freeman: 'It's supposed to be awful at times'

• Jenna Ortega addressed criticism over the 31-year age gap with "Miller's Girl" costar Martin Freeman.
• The two actors play a student and teacher in an inappropriate relationship.
• "It's not supposed to be a comfortable movie. It's supposed to be awful at times," Ortega said.

Jenna Ortega has spoken out after critics expressed discomfort over the age gap between her and her costar Martin Freeman in the controversial film "Miller's Girl."

"It's not supposed to be a comfortable movie. It's supposed to be awful at times," Ortega, 21, told Vanity Fair in a cover story published on Tuesday. "Art isn't always meant to be pleasant or happy, and everyone skips off into the sunset at the end. We all have fucked-up experiences at one point or another."

"Miller's Girl," released earlier this year, stars Ortega as Cairo Sweet, an 18-year-old high school student who starts an inappropriate relationship with her creative writing teacher, Jonathan Miller, played by the 52-year-old Freeman.

At the suggestion of her friend, Cairo blurs the lines between her and Mr. Miller as she seduces him. Cairo then uses their dynamic as inspiration for her midterm assignment, which ends up being a short story about a sexual relationship between a student and a teacher. Later in the film, Mr. Miller masturbates while reading Cairo's erotic short story, imagining him and her as the two main characters.

"Miller's Girl" was poorly received, landing a 29% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics called the movie shallow and "vapid," while audiences criticized the 31-year age gap between Ortega and Freeman.

Freeman defended the film in April, calling it "grown-up and nuanced" in an interview with The Times of London.

"It's not saying, 'Isn't this great,'" the actor said, adding that stories about tough matter can become "tainted by association."

"And that's a shame. Are we gonna have a go at Liam Neeson for being in a film about the Holocaust?" Freeman said, referring to Neeson's role in Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie "Schindler's List."