Within the first five minutes of Josh Safdie’s ping pong epic Marty Supreme, it’s clear that Odessa A’zion’s Rachel is the film’s heart and soul. That’s in the most intimate sense: the movie begins with Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) impregnating his married childhood sweetheart, complete with shots of CGI sperm fertilizing her egg. It’s a fitting start for a globe-spanning odyssey that is never lacking in ambition and chaos, in which A’zion’s performance—which fluctuates from resolute calm to dynamite energy—is as much a grounding force as it is the epicenter of Marty Supreme’s madness. As A’zion says proudly, “This bitch is on the same level as Marty.”

“I’m actually at a loss for words talking about it,” the 25-year-old LA native tells GQ over the phone hours before the film’s New York premiere. “It was such an incredible experience.” Marty Supreme takes Rachel from a pet storefront to a canine heist, perennially remaining by Marty’s side, even when his soaring goals of becoming the world’s greatest table tennis player threaten to leave her behind. “Dream big” has been the earworm tagline of the film’s supersized rollout (see: the blimps, the merch pop-ups, and that highly coveted jacket). Appropriately, Rachel’s unwavering faith in Marty speaks to how infectious passion can be, and its ability to broaden what life has in store.

Marty Supreme marks the end of a madcap breakout year for the actor, who also starred in the horror video game adaptation Until Dawn and is currently playing the most (lovingly) insufferable influencer on Rachel Sennott’s HBO comedy I Love LA. Here, she speaks about acting opposite Chalamet, riding that infamous orange blimp, and why she believes she was destined to play Rachel.

GQ: I read an interview where you said that you and Timothée Chalamet are very different actors. In what ways were you both different and how did that difference help your performance?

Odessa A’zion: He really immerses himself in a character, and I don’t do that as much. That’s what I meant when I said that we’re very different. Also, keep in mind, he’s been working on this for six years. He’s been learning ping pong, and I came into the project later. As much as I feel like the role was written for me, they didn’t know me when they were writing it. So I think he likes to stay in the zone and for me, I like getting in the zone when the cameras are rolling. But him staying in the zone felt so good and important for everyone’s performance, because then you really feel the Marty energy.

What made you think the part was written for you?

It does feel really cheesy to say [but] I felt like I was meant for Rachel and that they wrote that role for me without knowing it. I just felt so connected to her and I understood what she was going through and the things that she was feeling in her experiences. Not that I’ve been through every single one of them, but I could see her so clearly in my mind when I read it, and I felt so connected to her that it felt really meant to be. It felt even more meant to be, because I initially met with Josh on a Zoom and found out that he wasn’t going to cast me in it. And so I had to forget about the project, and then they came back months later and they were still casting it. And then it just felt like fate. [That’s] what Josh says.

Did you feel like you and Timothée were able to challenge each other? The relationship between Marty and Rachel is so rich and I’m curious if that translated.

Yeah, definitely. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he wanted to kill me or not. He’s just so good at getting that emotion out of you of, like, “Wait, are you mad at me?” But it was just so smart how he did it, and we talked about it afterwards. He was like, “I mean, it worked!” We had an incredible time.

Despite the way Marty treats her, Rachel still sticks by him. I feel like the audience goes through that same journey of being attracted to his magnetism. Why do you think you know she stays so faithful to him?

I think that she really, really, really believes in him, and she’s his day-one cheerleader no matter what he’s doing. She believes [he’s] great, even more so than [he does], probably. And I think that from a young age, she was infatuated with the idea of them together, and just wanted to stay by his side.

We know that Marty and Rachel are childhood friends. Did you do any work in figuring out how deep their history goes and those details that we don’t necessarily see in the film?

Josh was so amazing with that. He had a full backstory for every character he knew. He’s like, “Okay, here’s what you did when you were eight years old, and the reason why that’s important is because when you’re 15, this happened. And you guys went to go and see King Kong, and that became your favorite movie, and you’re obsessed with Fay Wray.” All that stuff in the backstory, Josh just knew everything about it.

Oftentimes, directors don’t have that, and you’re meant to think of the character’s backstory on your own, and what you think the character might have gone through, and how it will help you while you’re making the project. But this one was specific. He told Timothée and I the beats of our relationship and what we’ve been through in the past, and that is so helpful in just making sure everyone’s on the same page.

How dense was that backstory? Was it a binder or just Josh telling you everything?

I had a whole two pages written on Rachel, of who she is, what she’s been through, how she feels about her life at that time. How she feels about her husband, what life she sees for herself, what life she sees in Marty. Everything.

I’d love to talk about the scene where it’s revealed that Rachel faked her black eye. What were you going through emotionally? It’s a really intense scene.

That was one of my favorite things I’ve ever been able to do in my whole entire career. I have such a fond memory of telling [writer] Ronnie [Bronstein] on that day, just like, “Thank you so much for writing something like this, this really is a gift.” He was like, “I didn’t think about it like that.” I’m like, “Dude, when does an actor get to have seven emotional turns in a scene?” She is pulling this shit on Marty and the whole audience. She didn’t let anyone in on her secret, and she’s doing it to protect herself. She’s so strong, she’s so smart, and she’s scary too.

That’s when people realize, Oh, this bitch is on the same level as Marty. And she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants as well, so much so that she’s gonna fake an injury from her husband and then have Marty go and fucking hit him in the face with a trophy. I just think that that scene was just so amazing emotionally. They feel like they’re exhilarating to do. It’s like an adrenaline rush. It feels like therapy, in a way, because you get to access these emotions that you maybe suppressed in real life.

And what was the undertaking in filming that shootout in the film’s climax?

It was wild. First of all, it was freezing cold, and I’m in the back of the car with my shirt ripped off and my boobs out in this little pencil skirt. I’ve got blood all over me, and I’m hyperventilating, but I have this corset on, and then the weighted belly [is] all very tight and restricting—because I didn’t want to be able to breathe, because pregnant women can’t breathe that well. There were cuts all over my stomach from the friction from the corset. It was crazy. And then emotionally, it was wild to be sitting there and then having to all of a sudden snap into going from sitting completely still to hyperventilating. [It’s] so stupid but [that was] one of the best moments of my life.

I’d be remiss not to ask about the marketing of this movie, which has become its own thing entirely. Do you have friends asking you to get jackets for them?

I have had so many people asking me to get jackets, and I’m like, “Guys, I’m not running the thing!” I only have a jacket because I told Timothée I want a jacket. My sisters are asking, my cousins, other friends, my sister’s boyfriend, everyone wants the fucking jacket. It’s a hot commodity right now. They really did a good job, too, and let me tell you something, that shit is comfortable as hell.

Well, my next question was going to be how privy have you been to the coordination behind this campaign?

I definitely knew that they were gonna go crazy with it, just because of who is involved in the movie and the budget. So when you have a movie like that and you don’t market it, you’d be kicking yourself in a bad way. Tyler [The Creator] and I got to ride the blimp, which was so cool. I never in my life thought that I would ride a blimp. There’s only 26 in the whole entire world. And blimps were always so special in my eyes.

Did riding a blimp live up to your expectations?

I used to think that a blimp was kind of like a spaceship, and you go inside and you’re in the part where the helium is, which I know is not true. I never did research on blimps. I thought that it was [going to be] huge when you walk in, and it’s tiny! There’s only four seats, and it’s very compressed. It was really, really cool.

This story originally appeared in British GQ.