Inde Navarrette was dead set on prioritizing her work while filming writer-director Curry Barker‘s horror sensation Obsession.
Focus Features held a special screening of the movie at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, where Barker and Navarrette took the stage for a conversation following the film. During the discussion, the filmmaker expressed gratitude to the actress for giving her all in the role of Nikki, despite any potential for awkward moments as the character’s behavior gets more extreme and frightening.
“There’s a lot of people there on the other side of that camera, and to ask her to make a fool of herself in front of all these people was asking a lot,” Barker said. The director added about his efforts to keep everyone comfortable: “We’d like to keep it playful.”
Navarrette agreed before segueing into a point she wanted to make to any aspiring performers in the crowd. She explained that part of the appeal of working on a set could be the chance to develop close bonds with the cast and crew, but she told herself ahead of time that she would avoid trying to make new friends in order to feel empowered to ask for what she needed during the shoot.
“[Something] that I’ve never done on a set before was, I went on Obsession and I was like, ‘I don’t want to make any friends,’” Navarrette recalled. “And it’s not of, ‘I’m trying to be a dick,’ or ‘I’m trying to be an asshole.’ It was just, ‘I really want to focus on the work, and I really want to do this justice. I feel like this is my first opportunity to show range, and I fear that if I make really close friendships with people, that I will be scared to hurt their feelings if I need to go off outside and get myself together for this scene.’”
Inde Navarrette in Obsession.
Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
According to the actress, this mindset worked in ensuring that she could get those extra moments to focus on the character. “I found on this set, Curry and I having a really good relationship of, when I needed five minutes to go get myself together, if I needed to come to him, it was super professional,” she continued. “Now, we’ve grown to be friends. But at first, it was like, ‘How can we do this movie justice?’”
Focus released Obsession in theaters on May 15 after acquiring the film out of TIFF’s Midnight Madness. Centering on Bear (Michael Johnston) dealing with the consequences of a wish that makes his crush Nikki (Navarratte) fall for him, the movie has experienced an unbelievable run, surpassing $500 million worldwide on a budget of just $750,000. Obsession is expected to be a key player in the forthcoming Oscar race, with particular attention paid to the performance of Navarrette, the breakout star who recently landed a coveted role as Rogue in Marvel’s next X-Men feature.
During Wednesday’s onstage chat, Barker praised Navarrette for giving Nikki a flirtier personality than he initially envisioned for the character.
“I wrote Nikki as this really sweet, girl-next-door type of vibe,” the director explained. “And then Inde really brought something that was pretty apparent even in the chemistry read that was kind of sassy. What it really brought was [that Bear was] even more friend-zoned than I wrote.”