The 25-year-old opens up to PEOPLE about her buzzy 'Obsession' performance — plus, her past, present and future as an actress
Credit: Leon Bennett/Getty; Focus Features
NEED TO KNOW
- Inde Navarrette stars in Curry Barker’s new horror film Obsession as Nikki, who changes after a wish gone wrong
- The 25-year-old actress opens up about her breakout role, how she got her start in acting and her passions outside of work in a new interview with PEOPLE
- Navarrette also shares what’s next for her, including whether she plans to continue acting in horror films
Inde Navarrette "terrified" herself while filming her new horror movie. She also fell in love with the genre.
The burgeoning scream queen, 25, is taking the big screen — and audience heart rates — by storm in Obsession, the first major theatrical release from Curry Barker, the writer-director currently tasked with A24’s upcoming Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake.
Navarrette tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that she even scared herself while filming the supernatural thriller-body horror hybrid, which sees her turn the “obsessive girlfriend” trope on its head as Nikki — or, as she puts it, “all of the different Nikkis.”
There’s empathetic writer Nikki, the one Bear (Michael Johnston) falls for, setting the film's plot into motion with the snap of a “One Wish Willow.” Then, there's the Nikkis who suffer the consequences of the wish-gone-wrong — and who Navarrette says she shaped by contorting her face and asking herself, “What happens if I were to say my intrusive thoughts at a 10 right now?”
Credit: Focus Features
“You really never know what she's going to do,” Navarrette says of the character, who is sure to have theatergoers watching through their fingers. “But,” she clarifies, “I really wanted Nikki to seem like a person first and foremost, no matter how extreme she goes.”
Navarrette, who fell in love with acting at age 9, finds a complex breakout role in Nikki — and one that viewers can relate to, she hopes. “My goal was for girls and people to go watch this film and to be like, ‘I get it. I understand it,’ and create conversations after that,” she says. “I wanted this role to be one that girls could go, ‘You know what? I’ve felt like that.’ ”
And if the buzz about her performance is any indication, all of the Nikkis also helped the Fresno-born actress, perhaps best known for her turn on The CW’s Superman & Lois, find her niche. “If horror will have me, I will stick in horror for a while,” she tells PEOPLE with a smile.
Here, Navarrette tells PEOPLE about how she got her start in acting, what she gets up to outside of work and why she isn’t reading any social media comments right now — plus, some of the artists that influenced her Obsession character, from Brittany Murphy to Paramore.
PEOPLE: I would love to know just how you got started acting.
INDE NAVARRETTE: I just loved lying as a kid. No, I'm just kidding. My mom was a single mom and so during summertime, it was difficult for her to go to work and then also have two young kids, and so we would go to this program at the YMCA. My older brother went to this science thing where they mixed oil and vinegar and soap and they shook it up and it separated and, “Ooh!” And then they put me in the drama and the dance and everything like that.
I remember just having so much fun with it, because I felt like I was in the movies that my mom would watch right before we were going to bed. I remember her watching Gladiator, Moulin Rouge! and Alien, which are all movies that are extreme for kids to watch. But it was just so lovely because I would understand the emotions that were going on in the movie from such a young age. And then going to this theater camp, I felt like I could also do what I loved watching them do. It just really gave me a high. I mean, of course I didn't feel high as a kid, but it just made me feel really good.
Then that teacher went to my mom and was like, "She's got something." So my mom tucked that into her little back pocket, and then anytime that I wanted to go do school plays or anything like that, she would be my biggest supporter. Then we moved down to Los Angeles and she was like, "Do you actually want to do this?" And I was like, "Yeah, I would love to." And so we did everything humanly possible to get here. I graduated school early so that I could work jobs to pay for headshots, all of this stuff. And then finally, we're here.
Credit: Focus Features
PEOPLE: I really want to know if you're a big horror fan because it sounds like you watched some growing up.
NAVARRETTE: The Mexican side of my family: huge with horror. Huge. Chucky dolls in the bathroom. It was a really intense household, and I remember just being really sensitive to it because my mom was completely different. Hers was like Audrey Hepburn and Sandra Bullock and 10 Things I Hate About You, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. So it was very black and white. Also just cultural differences. But I was really sensitive to that as a kid because obviously it's a little bit scary, and I think I carried the sensitivity all throughout my life. But I also have an appreciation for horror, so it's like this middle ground of, “When do I want to be terrified?”
PEOPLE: I understand. I had neighbors who were the obsessive horror people and I would sneak over and be scarred horribly.
NAVARRETTE: Yeah. House of 1000 Corpses by Rob Zombie.
PEOPLE: Love it now, but as a child …
NAVARRETTE: I love it. But as a child, when Rainn Wilson gets turned into a fish… stuck in my head. Stuck in my head. Nope. Traumatized.
PEOPLE: On Letterboxd, people are already calling you things like an “immediate inductee into the horror hall of fame.”
NAVARRETTE: Holy s—.
PEOPLE: There's so much high praise for your performance. Have you seen any of it? I'd love to know what your favorite bit of feedback you've gotten so far is.
NAVARRETTE: Oh, that's a really good question. Obviously it just makes me feel really proud because I put everything that I possibly could into this character. I was just remembering… Screw it. There's this quote: "To get something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done." And I knew that I wanted to break out of the past roles that I had been doing. I knew I was going to do everything humanly possible and I was going to have so much fun while doing it because there's just so many aspects to being a person and being a girl and everything that you don't get to show. And I was like, "You're going to see it." So seeing all of the positive feedback just makes me feel really good because it's obviously such a vulnerable thing to do.
But my mom and I were talking about limiting the amount of things that I'm allowed to see just for right now because it's a beginning of a new process and a new step in my career and I really want to make sure that I'm protecting myself first, while also giving thanks to everybody who loves the movie.
Credit: Brianna Bryson/FilmMagic
PEOPLE: Can I ask what that means for you? Is it not reading comments on social media?
NAVARRETTE: It's not seeing anything on social media unless it's being sent to me by a family member or my team. And then also just whatever I get in person, then it allows me to physically see that person, receive what they're saying and to say “thank you” to them directly.
PEOPLE: The only bit of hesitation that I've encountered about Obsession is people worried about the “obsessive girlfriend” trope, of Nikki being the butt of a joke somehow.
NAVARRETTE: 100%.
PEOPLE: Is that something that you had in mind, or talked about with Curry at all as you were shaping Nikki?
NAVARRETTE: Yeah, I think that was something that I was really sensitive to. I think it wasn't in the forefront of Curry's mind because he was solely focused on this idea of a movie about how terrifying it is to have somebody obsessed with you, or to have this obsession with each other. He was so focused on that. But I think because I get to be very singular and very focused on the girlfriend aspect of it, it was definitely something that I thought about. But what I really loved that Curry did was that he painted the picture of what it feels like to have things happen behind closed doors, and then for you to be considered crazy in public. I think it really turns that trope on its head because it really shows the brutal honesty of what it's like to be in that.
My goal was for girls and people to go watch this film and to be like, "I get it. I understand it,” and create conversations after that. I wanted this role to be one that girls could go, “You know what? I felt like that.” I wanted to turn [the trope] on its head, and be like, "Oh, you think you're going to go see a movie about a crazy girlfriend?" Well, guess what? Gotcha.
PEOPLE: Did you draw on any real-life experiences to shape Nikki?
NAVARRETTE: Oh, 100%. I think what I drew from myself for Nikki was just this everyday experience of — how do I word this? — this really horrific thought process of, "Do I have to be a certain person in order to be loved?" And then also if you're not, then will you ever be desired? Desire and love are such intrinsic aspects of being human, but also how does that turn horrific? My personalness that I brought to Nikki was just that I wanted her to be understood through all of the things that are "so hard to understand." But it's one of those things where unless you've been through it, you're not really going to understand, which is why it opens up conversations. You know how whenever you're having an essay and then you have your sources? I wanted this to be a source for people to go to and be like, "That."
PEOPLE: I feel like you also get to play more than one Nikki. I don’t want to spoil anything, but…
NAVARRETTE: Yeah, there's three, you know what I mean? We're all different people. I'm a different person talking to you right now than I am by myself or with my boyfriend or with my family, or with my dad's side of the family, with my mom's side of the family. But I really wanted Nikki to seem like a person first and foremost, no matter how extreme she goes. But also at the same time, the way that I attacked that was just having a hyperbolic version and then a “less” version, and then just playing between those two. Or honestly, just having like, "What happens if I would say my intrusive thoughts at a 10 right now?" There's certain sides that you know you might suppress and just what happens if you don't.
But I had so much fun playing her because you really never know what she's going to do and how fun it is to see other people's reactions to that, to see Michael's reactions to that. So there were just so many different things to play with whenever I was playing her — to have fun, but also to be empathetic and sympathetic, and to take it seriously while also not trying to put the weight of the world on my body, that way I can still go into work the next day.
It was so funny. We shot all of the stuff that was in the house first before we even touched anything else, and so some of our craziest scenes were what we shot first, so that really just opened up the door for everything. Afterward it was like, "Oh, if I can do this, I can do anything."
PEOPLE: A lot of the hype about this movie is centered on your physicality, which is teased a bit in the trailer. Was there a lot of mirror time involved in that?
NAVARRETTE: Yeah. Curry was like, "Go home and make faces." And I said, "No, not going to do that." I'm very sensitive. And it got to the point where whenever I would see myself on the monitor, I would be so terrified of myself. I'd brush my teeth in the kitchen to not look at myself in the mirror just because I think it's so intrusive. I don't know, maybe I'm just a very sensitive person.
Curry’s very particular. He knows exactly what he wants. This has been his baby. I'd give him [takes] while feeling like her and then he would just manipulate what I would look like. I would feel like her, the sadness that's underneath it, and then he would physically articulate the other Nikki that's on top. So it was like this weird little thing that we would do back and forth because I can't see myself. Once he and I created that dialogue, he would then entrust me to know what he was meaning. The "no, no, no, no” scene or the diner scene or the "I'm your freaky Nikki" — I got to do that one.
Credit: Focus Features
PEOPLE: Were there any scenes that you filmed that you wish ended up in the movie?
NAVARRETTE: Yeah, there was a monologue at the very beginning whenever Bear and Nikki are in the car together before the wish. She goes on this rant about how she wants to quit work and she wants to focus on writing, and she wants to talk about love stories and how there's a difference between love and romance, how romance is kind of fleeting; It's like glitter, but love is the real deal. I think that's cut from the movie, but I also think that that was so important for Nikki because you really get to see at the very beginning of the film how she feels about love, and how she feels about romance and how serious she takes it. I do wish it was kept because I think it would just make it so much more haunting.
PEOPLE: You’ve talked about some of the movies that you watched to prepare for this role. I would love to know if there's anything else that helped you shape this character?
NAVARRETTE: I think my love for films like Girl, Interrupted. Brittany Murphy is somebody that I haven't talked about publicly that really inspires me as an actress, just the gritty nature that she can bring, that's also human. She's like, "Well, she's charismatic. She's everything." I feel like if there was a person that could have played Nikki, that I would have loved to see a version of Nikki, it would have been her. And also just music. I mean Creed, Korn… Paramore was a really big inspiration for me, like “Misery Business” the whole way to work and the whole way home because it's that line of, "Once a whore, you're nothing more, I'm sorry, that'll never change." Just the gritty nature of that song.
PEOPLE: Brittany Murphy is just…
NAVARRETTE: There's not enough time in the day.
PEOPLE: You're perhaps best known right now for Superman & Lois. Do you prefer doing action or horror? Is there a genre that you want to continue to work in, or do you want to work all over?
NAVARRETTE: I would love to try multiple different things. But I'm not going to lie, I think if I'm lucky enough to, I'll stick in horror for quite some time. Horror is the most welcoming. I didn't know that it was going to be something that I loved doing because of how scared it makes me. And there's so many different avenues of horror. You've got the gory, you've got Rob Zombie, you've got the psychological, you've got the thriller, you've got so many different aspects to play with. So there's so many different worlds to build. If horror will have me, I will stick in horror for a while.
Credit: Focus Features
PEOPLE: And Obsession is an intersection of all of those things. I didn't even touch on the gore, but it’s phenomenal and caught me so off-guard. Was that practical?
NAVARRETTE: All of it was practical. We used CGI for anything falling from the ceiling, but everything was practical. The shot in the party scene where there's blood coming down and it goes in my eyes, that's actually my eyes. It was so fun. I felt like this “007” James Bond game from the early 2000s where everything goes red. Your eyes literally… you see red everywhere. But it was so much fun.
Whenever I threw up, they taped it down [on my cheek], but the thing is that it came off right before they pumped it and it shot in my mouth. And so poor Michael was underneath me looking at me like, "Oh, she's actually going to throw up on me." And so Haley Nicole Johnson — one of the best producers that I've ever worked with — comes running over with a bucket and she's just patting my back and just being like, "Get it out. It's okay." So then I didn't eat for the rest of the day because I was terrified. I was like, "I'd much rather dry heave than actually throw up on a person." So our makeup artist just held the tube right here for that shot.
PEOPLE: What does the fake vomit taste like? I've always been curious.
NAVARRETTE: It's dried milk. It's dried creamer milk. It tastes like nothing, but the texture is …
PEOPLE: Horrific?
NAVARRETTE: More horrifying than Nikki.
PEOPLE: Because this is your PEOPLE debut, can you also tell me a little bit about yourself outside of you as an actress?
NAVARRETTE: I love anime. I'm watching Jujutsu Kaisen right now. I started my anime journey with My Hero Academia. I followed that with Hunter × Hunter. I love playing pool with my friends. I love a good dive bar. I love people watching at a good dive bar. It's the best. Right now, I'm really falling in love with New York as a city. I haven't been there or I'm normally a West Coast girly, but the East Coast is calling my name. I really love art in different ways. I'm a huge painter. I love painting. I feel like Bob Ross. I don't consume a lot of media, but if I do, it's podcasts.
PEOPLE: What kind of podcasts are you listening to?
NAVARRETTE: The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya. If I'm going to watch anything, it's going to be RuPaul's Drag Race. And my goal for 2026 is to learn how to surf. It's not going to happen. I'm going to drown, but I'm going to try it. … I don't want to die.
Obsession — which also stars Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless and Andy Richter — is in theaters now.
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