Inde Navarrette Isn’t Chasing A Fluke, She’s Ready To Risk Everything To Prove It

Horror has produced plenty of surprise hits over the years, but few of them have launched a virtually unknown actor into award season conversations the way ‘Obsession’ has for Inde Navarrette. The 25 year old spent years building a resume through supporting television work, quietly gaining a following long before anyone outside genre circles knew her name.

Before landing her breakout, Navarrette appeared in the CW’s ‘Superman & Lois’ and Netflix’s ’13 Reasons Why,’ after her first role in the Snapchat series ‘Denton’s Death Date.’ Her turn in ‘Obsession,’ written and directed by Curry Barker, cast her as Nikki Freeman, the object of a supernatural wish gone wrong made by her coworker Bear. That role has since helped push the film past 339 million dollars worldwide on a budget of just 750,000 dollars.

That kind of overnight success comes with pressure, and Navarrette isn’t pretending otherwise. She recently opened up about her mindset moving forward, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “I really want to prove that ‘Obsession’ wasn’t just lightning in a bottle.” She added that she doesn’t mind the exhaustion of her sudden schedule, saying she doesn’t care how little sleep she’s getting because she isn’t sure she’ll get this kind of opportunity again.

That drive is already showing up in the choices she’s making. Navarrette has named Ryan Coogler, Greta Gerwig, Michael Mann and Jake Schreier as directors she’d love to work with, and revealed she has already met with both Mann and Schreier, the latter currently developing Marvel’s first standalone X-Men film. When asked directly whether she’d take on a comic book role, she didn’t shy away from the idea.

Her immediate future looks a little less flashy but no less demanding. Her next project, ‘Invertigo’ from director Matthias Hoene, has already wrapped filming and follows a group of teens who talk their way onto a rollercoaster before its official opening, only for a system failure to trap them hundreds of feet in the air. She’s also attached to the indie drama ‘Kids of the Black Hole,’ playing a character named Emma in a story about teenagers reckoning with the fallout of a robbery gone wrong.

As for whether ‘Obsession’ gets a follow up, Navarrette seems just fine leaving Nikki’s story where it is. She said she likes that there’s no traditional sequel on the table, and that she’d rather see Barker pursue the anthology concept he’s floated, where each installment centers on a different wish. The film has already earned both Certified Fresh and Verified Hot status, proof that audiences are just as obsessed with her performance as critics are.

With awards buzz building and Hollywood clearly paying attention, Navarrette’s next few choices could define whether she becomes a lasting scream queen or just another one hit wonder. Do you think Nikki Freeman deserves the awards recognition everyone’s talking about, or are you more excited to see what Navarrette does next in ‘Invertigo’?