“I remember being really thankful and grateful that he did that,” Ortega said of Boyce, revealing that the audition was the last time she saw him before his death.
Jenna Ortega is looking back on a “sweet” moment she shared with the late Cameron Boyce during an audition when they were teenagers.
In a recent interview with French TV outlet Canal+, per PEOPLE, the actress recalled the time Boyce stopped an audition they were in together after she felt “uncomfortable” while they were running a scene where they were supposed to kiss.
Ortega, now 21, who, like Boyce, was a child star, said it was the final time she saw her friend before he passed away in 2019.
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“The last time I saw my friend Cameron Boyce — I’d known him since I was like 11 or 12, and we were supposed to kiss [in an audition], and he knew me, since I was 11 or 12,” she recalled during the interview, in which she appeared alongside her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice costars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara. “This is a few years later, 15, 16, came in, we were supposed to be love interests.”
“But because he obviously felt weird and he was a bit older, he was like — we both just kinda looked at each other, and we were like, ‘No, we can’t do this,'” Ortega continued. “And it was so sweet because I was uncomfortable and I was having a hard time.”
“And then, we wished each other well,” she said, adding, “I remember being really thankful and grateful that he did that.”
O’Hara praised Boyce as a “gentleman,” to which Ortega and Ryder voiced their agreement.
In July 2019, Boyce tragically died in his sleep after suffering a seizure caused by his epilepsy. He was 20.
Following his death, The Cameron Boyce Foundation has raised awareness about epilepsy and other causes championed by the young actor.
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While speaking to PEOPLE at Cam For A Cause: A Fundraiser for The Cameron Boyce Foundation To End Epilepsy back in June, Boyce’s parents, Libby and Victor Boyce, reflected on their son’s legacy just days after what would have been his 25th birthday.
“Because of the love that Cameron receives, we still get, or we can grow as a foundation. We can push the mission out, we can push the message out because people still want to hold onto him. They don’t want him to be gone,” Victor said. “And so, as well as us upholding his legacy, all of his fans, all of his supporters, they still keep his legacy alive. And that’s super important, obviously for many reasons for us.”
“For me, it’s a reminder of just what a beautiful soul we birthed, but also we raised,” Libby added. “And so, it’s very mixed. It was very bittersweet. It was a very hard day, but it was also a very beautiful thing to see what he meant to so many people.”
Boyce’s costars and friends, such as Ortega, have continued to pay tribute and honor him in the years following his death.
