{"id":882304,"date":"2026-10-14T18:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882304\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T18:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T18:48:09","slug":"awards-chatter-podcast-interview-with-obsession-star-inde-navarrette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882304\/","title":{"rendered":"Awards Chatter Podcast: Interview with ‘Obsession’ Star Inde Navarrette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cI feel like I\u2019m Dorothy in the tornado,\u201d Inde Navarrette<\/a>, the star of Curry Barker<\/a>\u2019s acclaimed blockbuster Obsession<\/a>, says on the latest episode of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of 500 students at Chapman University. The 25-year-old, who is now generating best actress Oscar buzz for her portrayal of a young woman whose free will is stolen by a friend\u2019s wish that she love him \u201cmore than anyone in the fucking world,\u201d continues, \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a whirlwind, but I\u2019m very honored and thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore Obsession, Navarrette was just one of countless young actresses fighting for a shot in Hollywood. A military brat who fell in love with acting at YMCA summer camp at the age of nine, she relocated to Los Angeles after her freshman year of high school and began auditioning for professional gigs. She landed parts on the Snapchat show Denton\u2019s Death Date (2019) and the TV series 13 Reasons Why (2020) and Superman & Lois (2021-2024), but in-between there were stretches of rejection, unemployment and doubt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, in 2024, came an audition for a low-budget indie \u2014 it ended up costing just $750,000\u00a0\u2014 centered around a complex female lead: Nikki Freeman, who is introduced as an ambitious and independent young woman, and then, on the flip of a dime \u2014 or the snap of a One Wish Willow \u2014 becomes a totally different, almost demonic version of herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tNavarrette landed the part, her first leading role in a film, which seemed like the biggest thing that could possibly happen for her. Then, she and her director Barker, a YouTuber only a year older, went to work, and things began to come together better than they ever could have hoped. The film was accepted into the Toronto International Film Festival, which was their shared dream. But never could they have imagined just how well it would be received at its midnight premiere on Sept. 5, 2025. That night, she says, \u201cEverything changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film played like gangbusters and sparked an overnight bidding war, ultimately selling for $14 million to Focus Features. Eight months later, on May 15, 2026, it was released in 2,615 theaters in North America, and, on the back of a 94 percent tally on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- CinemaScore, grossed $17 million in its opening weekend, a remarkable triumph. But, as it turned out, it was just getting started. In Hollywood\u2019s equivalent of defying gravity, it made even more money than that in each of the next five weekends, and has now grossed more than $514 million worldwide, making it one of the most commercially successful films of all time.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the film exploded, so, too, did interest in Navarrette. Her performance was described by THR as \u201ca virtuosic performance,\u201d by the Los Angeles Times as \u201cinstantly classic,\u201d by The Guardian as \u201ca barnstorming breakout\u201d and by the New York Times as \u201can Oscar-worthy turn.\u201d And she was suddenly omnipresent in memes, gifs and think-pieces, and on casting wish-lists. <\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of this episode, the actress reflects on her path to Hollywood; the challenges of making Obsession, and the moral questions raised by the film; how she has processed the film\u2019s success and her own sudden fame; how she feels about the possibility of reuniting with Barker for a sequel; her next roles, among them Rogue in Marvel\u2019s reboot of X-Men; her passion for gaming and anime; plus more. You can watch or listen to the full conversation above, or read excerpts of it \u2014\u00a0lightly edited for clarity and brevity \u2014\u00a0below.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn pursuing the role of Nikki in Obsession\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had told my team I really wanted to do something that showed range and difference, because sometimes people can\u2019t see what you\u2019re capable of until you quite literally show them\u2026 they sent me Obsession, and I read it, and I was like, \u2018This is going to require a lot of me that I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m capable of.\u2019 But even as I was having that thought-process I was like, \u2018Shut up, you are so capable of this.\u2019 So reading it and then sending in the tape, I felt pretty confident.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn being thrown right into the deep-end on the shoot of Obsession\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe shot when they\u2019re making out on Bear\u2019s bed and she goes, \u2018What the\u2014?!\u2019 and then she shoots backwards. That was our first day. And that was a pretty big task. Before going in, I told Curry, \u2018I\u2019m really sorry, but I\u2019m not going to show you any of the freakouts in rehearsal.\u2019 And I think I saw him die, because\u2026 it\u2019s very important for the character. But I felt like if I gave it away too early, it wasn\u2019t going to be as authentic as I needed it to be\u2026 I really wanted to keep that safe before it needed to come out in order to play it true. And so we\u2019re in the first day, I know Curry\u2019s nervous, I know that I\u2019m really being a dick by saying \u2018I\u2019m not going to show you anything.\u2019 But I mean, he\u2019ll even say now that it was a weight lifted off of his shoulders when we did that first freakout, because he was like, \u2018Oh my God, okay, she can do it! She just needs privacy with these things.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the period between the completion and release of Obsession, when she did a deep-dive on anime\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI transitioned into studying film and watching movies and asking, \u2018Why do I like them?\u2019 What I like is anime, so like, why do I like that? I mean, Jujutsu Kaisen I find to be a very fascinating anime, but why is it so different than Demon Slayer? Why is it so different than other ones? With Jujutsu Kaisen, they play with timelines, right? With Demon Slayer, they don\u2019t, it\u2019s very linear. And what does that mean and how does that affect with storytelling? I really dove into, \u2018Why is Jujutsu Kaisen so good?\u2019 And I learned about timeline and about storytelling \u2014 how a person can have a monologue at the beginning of the episode that matters two episodes later or even at the end, and that person\u2019s dead and you don\u2019t learn it until then \u2014 and then attaching that to my screenwriting and trying to learn that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn what it\u2019s like to suddenly be memed, giffed and very famous\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am figuring this out. There\u2019s no perfect way. Of course, attention feels great, but I think that it\u2019s really important to recognize how it makes you feel and where you get your cup filled. The way that I\u2019m handling it personally? I have this thing where, \u2018It\u2019s none of my business.\u2019 I love the way that it shows up in my family members\u2019 lives where now I can tell my dad [via a texted meme of her in Obsession], \u2018No, no, no, no, don\u2019t do that.\u2019 [Asked to confirm she really texts memes of herself\u2026] Oh, absolutely, are you kidding me? I don\u2019t think anybody in this audience, if they had the memes, would not do that, it\u2019s the best. But it\u2019s a two-hander. On the one hand, it feels wonderful and I can kind of he-he, ha-ha with it. But also, at the same time, the way to kind of keep my feet on the ground and head not up in the clouds is to go, \u2018You know what? This is really fun, but some of it isn\u2019t my business.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn whether or not Obsession has changed the way she views or approaches real-life relationships\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNot necessarily\u2026 I kind of take what I learned from Nikki \u2014 \u2018Don\u2019t allow people to have control over you, you should be very independent\u2019 \u2014 but also, at the same time, if you\u2019re in love with somebody, then you\u2019re in love with them and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. Relationships are very beautiful. As I\u2019m growing up, I really want to give myself grace in not understanding everything. I\u2019m very happy in mine [relationship] right now. [Audience applauds, prompting her to burst out laughing.] What\u2019s the clapping? I can\u2019t wait to tell him that\u2026 A relationship should not define who you are at all whatsoever, and the amount of attention or love that you are getting from somebody else does not define yourself whatsoever \u2014\u00a0I think it\u2019s really important to remember that. Just know that you are loved and important and love everything. Love as much as you possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn what she thinks happens to Nikki after the credits roll in Obsession, and whether or not she\u2019d be up for doing a sequel\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would totally be open to doing a sequel. Are you kidding me? Who am I to say no? And what is she doing afterwards? I think the non-pretty answer, which I think is more important to give sometimes than kind of just giggling through answers, is she\u2019s starting a grief process. When things happen that are completely out of our control, like losing a loved one, losing a parent, losing autonomy, having an experience that wasn\u2019t your fault, it\u2019s very difficult to understand anything. She\u2019s just starting the grief process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn her outlook for the future, including signing on to play Rogue in Marvel\u2019s upcoming X-Men reboot\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think the future is looking like really hunkering down because I\u2019m in a very specific opportunity in my career where I can kind of make it last as long as humanly possible or throw it all away. I really want to be specific with the next couple of my decisions to really solidify what I want to do in this industry. And what I want to do is play characters that are people and grounded and really thought-through. And I really want to not look like myself in some characters. I attached myself to The Waffle House Index, and essentially I want with that character to either gain a lot of weight, lose a lot of weight, add eyebrow piercings, maybe shave my head, and do everything humanly possible to look different. Because I also recognize that with acting comes the freedom of being a completely different person, one of those people being Rogue, Anna Marie\u2026 paying homage, paying respect to the incredible writers that are a part of Marvel, with Jake Schreier directing, taking what they want to do, adding my own sauce, and then going from there!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI feel like I\u2019m Dorothy in the tornado,\u201d Inde Navarrette, the star of Curry Barker\u2019s acclaimed blockbuster Obsession,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[126312,236,82568,88,103938,85043],"class_list":["post-882304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-awards-chatter-podcast","tag-celebrities","tag-curry-barker","tag-entertainment","tag-inde-navarrette","tag-obsession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}