Odessa A’zion Cannot Fake It

Odessa A’zion has a date with Quentin Tarantino. She’s planning to see Reservoir Dogs at the New Beverly Cinema, which the filmmaker bought in 2007. But first A’zion must get through her first Vanity Fair photo shoot. Posing is anxiety inducing enough even without a long drive up a windy Malibu hill that’s left A’zion carsick. But she puts the nausea aside once she reaches the beach, chugging water before launching herself into crashing waves, nerves momentarily forgotten.

A’zion should get used to just diving in. The 25-year-old—makeup-free and dressed in a striped shirt for our interview, her mop of curly hair now dry—has graduated from playing troubled teens on short-lived series like Netflix’s Grand Army and the CBS sitcom Fam to It-girl-in-waiting status. This fall she’ll become the face of a generation in two titles: I Love LA, a comedy series from Rachel Sennott that airs Sunday nights on HBO, and Josh Safdie’s A24 sports drama Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as the titular table tennis champion.

Uncomfortable as the attention may feel—“God, interviews are so weird,” she rasps—A’zion certainly looks the part. She’s got a trendy septum piercing and a smattering of tattoos, frequently on display in the Instagrams she posts with friends like Madelyn Cline and Billie Eilish. A’zion is “a romantic,” says Safdie. “She’s also a punk.”

It’s an overwhelming moment—but one A’zion has been building toward since childhood. At eight, she was reciting movie scenes to her bathroom mirror. As a teenager she attended CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts in Van Nuys, California, though she spent only a few weeks in its theater program. “I hated it so much,” says A’zion. At 15, she began a frustrating two years of fruitless auditioning. “I was fully convinced I’m never going to book anything ever,” A’zion says. To put it more frankly, as she tends to do: “I must suck balls.”

The tide began to turn when A’zion ditched the neutral outfits she’d been advised to wear and embraced her own instincts. “I started not giving a fuck,” she says. “Then things started happening.” She booked a role on the musical drama Nashville, then played supporting parts in indies like Am I OK? and the final girl in 2022’s Hellraiser reboot—not that A’zion is eager to revisit these credits. “I’ve hated every single performance of mine,” she says. “If you’re a painter and don’t want to show your early work, you don’t have to. When you’re acting, things that you would now call mistakes still exist in the world.”

This coming-of-age period is around the time when A’zion decided to drop her given surname—which perhaps could’ve opened a few more doors. She’s a daughter of actor Pamela Adlon and German writer-producer Felix Adlon; both of her grandfathers were filmmakers. Her older sister, Gideon, is also an actor. Their childhood loosely inspired Pamela’s critically acclaimed FX series Better Things, about a single working mother raising three girls in LA. A’zion played a character named Defiance in its first season, perhaps a nod to her desire to be known as more than somebody’s kid. When asked about distancing herself from the Adlon name, A’zion is guarded but firm: “It was important to me to…It’s just my name now. It’s my own name.”

It carried A’zion through what she considers her first “adult” role, as a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer in the 2023 dramedy Sitting in Bars With Cake. The film came after A’zion made three TV flops in a row—a running joke on the set of I Love LA. “Guys, clearly I’m the bad luck charm,” A’zion would say between takes. “So if we don’t go past season one, I’m so sorry.”

But hopes are high for the series, a natural successor to Lena Dunham’s Girls and Issa Rae’s Insecure. A’zion plays Tallulah, an influencer with a devil-may-care attitude whose most viral stunt involved riding the New York City subway in a bikini during the pandemic. Tallulah shows up in Los Feliz unannounced, scantily clad, and ready to make her mark: In the pilot she flashes one of the Church of Scientology’s Hollywood buildings.

“I Love LA was a lot harder for me than anything I’ve ever done because me and the character are so different,” says A’zion.“I don’t wear clothes like that. Power to the people who can, and I definitely felt that she helped me gain confidence, but it still was really difficult. And acting so two-faced—she’s so fucking hyper-confident and a little bit of a narcissist.” A’zion’s I Love LA costars—Sennott, Josh Hutcherson, Jordan Firstman, and True Whitaker, daughter of Forest— helped her feel comfortable on set and in photo shoots, which she finds as awkward as interviews.

After A’zion auditioned for I Love LA and met with Safdie over Zoom for Marty Supreme, she was initially told she’d lost both parts. “I was like, Well, I’ll just go fuck myself,” she says. Then her fortunes changed—much like real-life Ping-Pong star Marty Reisman, who inspired Chalamet’s character in the film. A’zion plays Rachel, his complicated love interest. The character is a dreamer, and A’zion is too: “She’s got a Fievel Mouse-kewitz quality,” says Safdie, comparing the actor to the adorable hero of the 1986 animated film An American Tail. “She feels independent, but also dead set on finding a way home.”

Chalamet’s immersive acting method motivated A’zion. “He takes it very seriously. I get embarrassed when I feel like somebody’s looking at me, getting in my process,” she says. “I’m working on removing the fear of judgment. Honestly, Nike got it right, because it’s true: You just have to do it. And I think Timothée does.”

A’zion is thrilled to finally have more visible projects, partly for practical reasons. “I still need the money,” she says. “You’d be surprised: You do these big movies, but you’re not getting a giant fucking paycheck. I definitely would like to cash another check so I don’t have to be evicted from my apartment.” Above all, A’zion is interested in making the kinds of films her generation will want to see in person—in either New York or LA. “I love both,” she says. “If I could break down the wall [between them] and just have it be like an open, giant window, I would.”

And don’t get the wrong idea: She has an artistic wish list too. “Quentin Tarantino, if you’re reading this, I’m here. Put me in the last [movie]. Please, I’ll do anything.”

Throughout: hair products by Leonor Greyl. Hair, Johnnie Sapong; Tailor, Caroline Trimble. Produced on location by Preiss Creative. For details, go to VF.com/credits.