Odessa A’zion on Her Breakout Fall in <i>I Love LA</i> and <i>Marty Supreme</i>
SOURCE:Time Magazine|BY:Esther Zuckerman
The actor has had a breakout fall, with a TV role in HBO's I Love LA and playing opposite Timotheé Chalamet in Marty Supreme.
Timothée Chalamet is getting a lot of credit for his intense commitment to his role as aspiring table-tennis great Marty Mauser in Josh Safdie's exhilarating Marty Supreme. But Odessa A'zion also put herself through the ringer for the movie.
Sure, Chalamet wore contacts to worsen his vision so Marty's glasses would feel real to him. But A'zion wanted to feel like she was pregnant and couldn't breathe, so she wore two corsets along with weights around her chest and built into the fake belly. After long hours on set she was left with blisters under her breasts. She also says she "chopped" her hair and had an allergic reaction to the dye used to alter its color.
"I was in the same boat as him for that," she says. "I get it. We were doing some weird physical stuff to our bodies."
While Chalamet has had a chokehold on the title of hot young film star for nearly a decade, A'zion more than goes toe to toe with him in the relentless period drama as Rachel Mizler, Marty's childhood friend turned hook-up, who ends up pregnant with his baby, and stuck in New York with her jerk of a husband, as Marty embarks on a global quest for glory. But instead of wilting in the shadow of Marty's giant personality, Rachel asserts herself in his life, proving she's just as driven and, frankly, wild as he is. The movie, which hits theaters on Christmas, has generated plenty of Oscar buzz since its October premiere at the New York Film Festival.
A'Zion as Tallulah in I Love LA Courtesy of HBO
Rachel marks A'zion's second major role of the year, after establishing herself as a breakout in Rachel Sennott's HBO comedy I Love LA, which ends its first season this month. On the small screen, she plays Tallulah, an impulsive influencer with a propensity for stealing but also an endearing naiveté. In some ways, Rachel and Tallulah could not be more different: Tallulah represents both the aspirations and unique challenges of Gen Z; Rachel works in a pet store in the 1950s. On top of that, A’zion plays them completely differently, putting on a modern vocal fry for Tallulah and adding a tough New York lilt for Rachel. Still, they both have a sort of untameable energy that feels unique to A'zion, who off screen has started to earn the mantle of real-life It Girl.
When we meet at the restaurant connected to the scene-y Bowery Hotel on a frigid December day, the 25-year-old A'zion looks the part with a nose ring and massive leather coat with a shearling collar. The effect is a bit Penny Lane in put in a blender with Instagram cool. And yet she has a sweetly nervous energy, going in for a hug when I offer up my hand to shake. She picks at her fingers, and at one point she stops our conversation to compliment my hair, a hugely flattering statement given her own curls have been the .
A'zion tells me she was scared upon realizing that Marty and I Love LA would be coming out around the same time.
"I know sometimes people get annoyed when they see someone's face too much," she says. "I didn't know if it was going to be too much at the same time with the show and the movie. I didn't want to throw people off."
But A'zion didn't appear out of nowhere. Instead, this is the culmination of a long-held goal for the performer, who started acting when she was 15. She knew she wanted that life for as long as she could remember, even if she professes she has trouble pinpointing an exact movie or television show that sparked her interest. "I just feel like anything you watch when you're alone you kind of end up rehearsing it, and you're like, 'I want to do that so bad,'" she says. "Everything inspired me."
A'zion would have started her career as soon as possible, but was told she had to wait. Her mother is the actor and writer Pamela Adlon, who created the semi-autobiographical show Better Things for FX, and A'zion brushes off the notion of talking about "family stuff." As for "A'zion," she says that "Zion" is her middle name.
"It's just my name," she says. "I don't even know how to explain it."
Though A'zion has been professionally acting for some time now, she thinks she is just now coming into her own as a performer.
"Marty Supreme was really the first time that I felt like, oh my God, this is the exact role that I've always wanted to play," she says.
Marty’s casting director, Jennifer Venditti, pegged A'zion after she auditioned for the second season of Euphoria, and while the show's creator Sam Levinson didn't want her for that particular role, he worked with her on a different part that ultimately never came to fruition. Levinson, however, recommended her to Safdie, who initially thought she was too young.
"I had to forget it, and keep grinding, keep auditioning and keep trying to get something and do something," she says.
Months later, Venditti reached out again. A'zion was on set for the horror movie Until Dawn but threw herself into the audition, which required a three-minute improvisational portion and an interview where Safdie quizzed her on her own life. (She had to redo the latter: "Jen was like, 'He's going to f-cking hate that interview portion. I really want you get this, because I think you're really right for the role so let's redo it.")
Rachel instantly clicked for A'zion. "She's just so wild," she says. "She's really smart. She's calculated. She's a player. She is a dreamer."
In Marty Supreme, A'Zion imbues Rachel with a fire inside Courtesy of A24
Tallulah was more difficult for A'zion to figure out. Part of that was her edgy, skin-bearing wardrobe, though she eventually leaned into the skimpiness.
"I just tried to play the opposite of Odessa," she says. "I changed my voice a little bit. Obviously my style was very different." (Whereas Tallulah prefers the most form-fitting, belly-button baring looks imaginable; A'zion tends to lean toward oversized, menswear-inspired looks that seem effortlessly put together.)
A'zion does love L.A., where she currently lives, even though now it's weird to say that given that it sounds like she's speaking the title of her own show.
"I think that the people are amazing and for some reason it gets a bad rap," she says. "I think that's just you're going to the wrong people to hang out with because you can find those motherf-ckers anywhere, find them in the middle of nowhere." She says she hung out with worse people during a brief stint at boarding school in Germany right before she started acting. (That experience, she notes, was "traumatizing.")
If Tallulah reads like a girl made for the 21st Century, A'zion comes off as an old soul, obsessed with ABBA and Led Zeppelin. She pulls out her phone to show me the Spotify playlist she made tracking the relationship between Marty and Rachel with anachronistic selections from Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and the Bee Gees. (The Tallulah playlist has more music A'zion listened to in high school: J. Cole, Gwen Stefani, Kanye.)
A'zion is also a musician herself. She plays multiple instruments and dedicates her time when not acting to working on her own songs. Her plan is to release material in 2026.
"We're just trying to make it good and to a place where I really am happy with it," she says. "Because I do have some music out. It's not particularly music that I'm like, 'This represents exactly what I want and see for myself.'"
She's also trying to continue to play characters like Rachel, who she describes as "really f-cking cool, layered, badass ladies," even if the come-down from her work on Marty was difficult. For a moment after finishing, she worried her life was over.
"I will never be a part of something as incredible as this ever again," she remembers thinking. "It really did feel like what Marty was after the whole movie, chasing his dream. It felt like that was my dream."
