Inde Navarrette didn't "want to make any friends" while filming Obsession.
The 25-year-old actress has explained her process during Curry Barker's surprise horror blockbuster's shoot, and she came up with her own method to make sure she could fully give herself to the role of Nikki, whose friend Bear (Michael Johnston) is granted his wish for her to fall in love with him.
Speaking during a special screening of the movie for Focus Features at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills on Wednesday (16.09.26), she said: "[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'.
"And it’s not of, ‘I’m trying to be a d***,’ or ‘I’m trying to be an a******.’ It was just, ‘I really want to focus on the work, and I really want to do this justice.'"
Navarrette noted that she saw the movie as her "first opportunity to show range", and didn't want anything getting in the way of that.
Explaining her logic going into the shoot, she added: "'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.'”
Navarrette admitted the mindset worked, and it created a "super professional" environment for a challenging role.
She added: “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.
“Now, we’ve grown to be friends. But at first, it was like, ‘How can we do this movie justice?'”
Meanwhile, director Barker heaped praise on Navarrette for being willing to "make a fool of herself" for the project.
He said: “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 wanted to "keep it playful" on set to make sure everyone was comfortable, while he highlighted the way Navarrette took Nikki in a totally different direction.
He explained: "I wrote Nikki as this really sweet, girl-next-door type of vibe.
“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.”
