{"id":389831,"date":"2025-11-19T11:43:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/389831\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T11:43:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:43:22","slug":"odessa-azion-on-marty-supreme-i-love-l-a-im-pinching-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/389831\/","title":{"rendered":"Odessa A’zion on ‘Marty Supreme,’ ‘I Love L.A.’: ‘I’m pinching myself’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hall of Fame baseball player Rickey Henderson once declared, \u201cIf my uniform doesn\u2019t get dirty, I haven\u2019t done anything in the baseball game.\u201d Odessa A\u2019zion isn\u2019t the biggest sports fan, but she can relate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love having a super dirty script,\u201d she enthuses late one afternoon in early November at a Mid City cafe. \u201cThe dirtier the script, the more loved it is.\u201d The 25-year-old actress has been working for about a decade in horror movies, indie comedies and crime thrillers. But this fall, she is breaking through in a new way thanks to \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d<\/a> the highly-anticipated new film from \u201cUncut Gems\u201d<\/a> co-director Josh Safdie.<\/p>\n

In this early-1950s epic, A\u2019zion plays Rachel, a married pet-store employee having an affair with her lifelong best friend and unscrupulous ping-pong champion Marty Mauser (Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet). But Rachel is no shrinking violet, holding her own against lowlifes and schemers while navigating the movie\u2019s unexpected turns, shocking violence and wrenching tension. A\u2019zion saves all her scripts, but the \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d one is especially meaningful to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call myself a memory hoarder, so the dirt and buildup on the script are memories,\u201d she explains. \u201c\u2018Oh, there\u2019s a fingerprint on this page with blood on it \u2014 I got [fake] blood on my hand and needed to check something on my script. This [page] corner was ripped off because I had to put my gum in it before we started filming.\u2019 I like seeing the work that was put into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMarty Supreme\u201d opens on Christmas, but is already generating substantial Oscar buzz. In the meantime, A\u2019zion is also earning raves for her performance as Tallulah, the hopelessly shallow, endlessly entertaining influencer on Rachel Sennott\u2019s zeitgeist-y HBO series, \u201cI Love L.A.\u201d<\/a> But unlike these two strong-willed, aggressive characters, A\u2019zion in person exudes the warm, infectious energy of your most fun pal, the one you want to spend all day goofing off with. She\u2019s a hugger and a high-fiver; she laughs easily and swears up a storm. Dressed in jeans, boots, a concert tee and a jacket, A\u2019zion doesn\u2019t behave like a rising star. And even though she hates when actors talk in such woo-woo terms, seriously, she knew she was destined to be Rachel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein] were writing it \u2014 before knowing that I was going to end up playing her \u2014 they were writing it for me,\u201d she insists with absolute conviction. \u201cI felt like I knew her really well \u2014 what she was going through, what she\u2019s been through. Not that I\u2019m as manipulative and calculated, but I can really see her. She\u2019s someone that I\u2019ve always wanted to be able to play and explore. If somebody was going to talk down [to] me, I\u2019m not going to say, \u2018Don\u2019t f\u2014 talk to me like that, you piece of s\u2014!\u2019 I don\u2019t do that confrontational s\u2014. I\u2019m a defuser. But Rachel\u2019s a f\u2014 hardheaded go-getter. I really admire her \u2014 I feel like I have that in me, but in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acting has helped A\u2019zion develop that more assertive side. In interviews, she is fond of sharing her mantra: \u201cI want a director to work with me, not on me.\u201d She formulated that mission statement when she was starting out, dealing with teachers, directors and castmates who didn\u2019t respect her because of her thin r\u00e9sum\u00e9. \u201cIt took a really long time for me to create boundaries,\u201d A\u2019zion admits, \u201cbecause I was so young and it\u2019s so important to me to be kind to everyone I\u2019m working with, no matter how they\u2019re treating me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s become just as committed to establishing boundaries while discussing her family. A\u2019zion\u2019s parents are filmmaker Felix O. Adlon and \u201cBetter Things\u201d co-creator Pamela Adlon<\/a>, who loosely based the acclaimed series on her relationship with her three daughters. A\u2019zion, who chose not to use the Adlon name professionally, is the middle child, the one stereotypically known for being the peacemaker. When asked if her defuser tendencies stem from her place in the sibling birth order, it\u2019s the only point in the conversation in which she\u2019s not effusive.<\/p>\n

\"A'zion <\/p>\n

A\u2019zion in \u201cMarty Supreme.\u201d<\/p>\n

(A24)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really good at talking about family stuff,\u201d she says politely but firmly. \u201cI will say I felt very misunderstood when I was younger and was more of the trouble child. Now I feel more like the peacemaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because Adlon rendered \u201cBetter Things\u2019\u201d three daughters so vividly, it\u2019s tempting to wonder how much of Frankie (who was played by Hannah Riley) is in A\u2019zion. Do people meet A\u2019zion expecting her to be like that free-spirited, searching character? \u201cI\u2019ve never commented on it before,\u201d A\u2019zion replies. \u201cBut I will say that that\u2019s a character, and it\u2019s something made from one person\u2019s perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

When A\u2019zion was younger, she shot her own short movies, eventually channeling her creative instincts into her auditions. \u201cOnce the industry started allowing self-tapes, I would always do something really out there,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve done self-tapes in my car. I\u2019ve done self-tapes at the beach. I\u2019ve done self-tapes in the ocean, in a pool, in my bed, in my bathtub. Why would I do it against a f\u2014 white wall?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Odessa <\/p>\n

On the way to the New York Film Festival premiere of \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019ll be fine,\u2019\u201d A\u2019zion says of her occasional bouts with anxiety. \u201cAnd then I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m going to throw up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

In fact, a self-tape got her the \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d job after an initial Zoom with Safdie made him worry she might be too young to play Rachel. But A\u2019zion ended up doing a self-tape in the middle of the night in Bucharest in the midst of filming the horror movie \u201cUntil Dawn.\u201d It was an intense phone booth scene from \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d and A\u2019zion took it upon herself to find a phone booth and recruited castmate Belmont Cameli to run the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The scene is] a lot calmer in the movie than my audition was,\u201d she recalls, laughing. \u201cBut I was so happy that I got a self-tape versus an in-person thing. You can make it entirely your own \u2014 you can really make it look like how you feel like it would look. If you want somebody to pay attention to your tape, make sure that you stand out and take a risk.\u201d Needless to say, Safdie was convinced.<\/p>\n

A\u2019zion has occasionally gotten anxious in the lead-up to the movie\u2019s release. On the way to the New York Film Festival premiere, \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019ll be fine\u2019 \u2014 and then I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m going to throw up.\u2019 I wish I smoked weed so that I could [calm down], but I don\u2019t smoke weed anymore \u2014 that would do the opposite and make my heart race even more.\u201d Still, she\u2019s trying to focus on her excitement about the doors that \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d could open for her to have, as she puts it, \u201ca career that I always saw myself having, doing roles that I have always wanted to do, instead of taking a job because I need more work and to financially get by.\u201d<\/p>\n

A rising star? A\u2019zion has heard those predictions before, so she\u2019s wary about being anointed the next big thing. After all, she remembers all the auditions that went nowhere. She remembers being behind on her rent. She remembers almost being evicted. She remembers getting fired from gigs. Simply being cast in a Josh Safdie film doesn\u2019t make those old wounds disappear. \u201cTo all of a sudden be like, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m done [worrying about my career]!\u2019 \u2014 I don\u2019t see that feeling coming anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

She takes a moment to enjoy the beautifully orange fall sunset in the distance. \u201cPeople tell me that [\u2018Marty Supreme\u2019] is going to be a moment, but it\u2019s still hard to process.\u201d A\u2019zion has held onto her dirty script, and its happy memories, but she confesses, \u201cI still don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s real. It\u2019s like, \u2018Did I really do that?\u2019 It\u2019s just a crazy thing to be a part of. I\u2019m pinching myself the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hall of Fame baseball player Rickey Henderson once declared, \u201cIf my uniform doesn\u2019t get dirty, I haven\u2019t done…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":389832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[185646,1582,276,185649,3603,185643,27102,185648,2961,224,5337,84736,185647,185641,16502,15433,112564,185645,185642,185644],"class_list":{"0":"post-389831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-aggressive-character","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-co-director-josh-safdie","12":"tag-daughter","13":"tag-dirty-script","14":"tag-horror-movie","15":"tag-intense-phone-booth-scene","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-marty-supreme","20":"tag-middle-child","21":"tag-odessa-azion","22":"tag-one","23":"tag-page","24":"tag-rachel","25":"tag-safdie","26":"tag-self-tape","27":"tag-self-tape-audition"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115576191019968306","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}