Inde Navarrette spoke at a special screening of Obsession in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.
Focus Features hosted the event at the Fine Arts Theatre with writer-director Curry Barker.
Navarrette said she decided before filming that she did not want to make friends on set.
Actor Inde Navarrette, who played Nikki Freeman in Curry Barker's Obsession, said she kept her focus on the job while filming. She spoke about it at a special screening of the horror film in Beverly Hills on Wednesday (September 16). Focus Features hosted the event at the Fine Arts Theatre, where writer-director Curry Barker and Navarrette appeared on stage for a post-screening conversation.
Inde Navarrette on why choose work over friendships while shooting Obsession
Barker praised her saying, “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.” He added that he tried to keep the set light. “We’d like to keep it playful,” Barker said.
Navarrette then explained that before filming began, she had made a deliberate choice.
On-set boundaries
Navarrette framed the choice as a lesson for aspiring performers in the audience. She said part of life on a set can be the chance to build close bonds with cast and crew, but she wanted enough distance to protect her process.
“[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.'”
That distance, she explained, gave her room to reset between difficult scenes. It also meant she could ask for time without worrying about upsetting people around her.
Professional relationship
She said the approach helped her secure those extra moments to concentrate on the character when she needed them.
“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?'”
