While Inde Navarrette gives a chilling performance in Obsession, she’s responding to discourse over the character being both a villain and victim.

The actress, who plays Nikki in the Curry Barker horror film, explained why she “wanted to humanize” the character after her best friend Bear (Michael Johnston) makes a wish that she would love him more than anything in the world.

“It meant a lot to me, and I really wanted to take it seriously,” she told DiscussingFilm. “I didn’t wanna just shy away from anything about that, so I really sat with Nikki for quite sometime … but I really wanted to take her seriously, and I wanted to humanize her. I really wanted to portray her as a real girl. And I wanted people to see themselves and to feel every aspect of themselves, if that was their experience.”

Navarrette continued, “But I found that there was a difference between what Bear was intending to do versus the way that it impacted Nikki, and how sometimes, what you can intend is not always how it might come across.”

While Naverrette plays Nikki as being possessed by a sinister spirit who’s obsessed with Bear, her performance also includes tortured outbursts as the real Nikki sporadically breaks free from her subconscious to react in horror as her friend takes advantage of the situation.

Now playing in theaters, Obsession also stars Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless and Andy Richter.

Following Barker’s 2024 directorial debut Milk & Serial, Obsession marks his breakout, ahead of a full slate that includes Blumhouse’s Anything but Ghosts and A24’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.