“She’s one of those very few talents that, in a world where we can’t agree on shit, we can agree that Ayo Edebiri is outrageously talented,” says Green. The two met through their mutual friend Boyce (a.k.a., Marcus). “I remember thinking this is one of the funniest people that I’ve ever met,” Green says of their introduction, during which he, Edebiri, and Boyce went to see No Time to Die in New York. Months later, when Green saw Edebiri in The Bear screeners Boyce had shared with him, he knew immediately that he wanted to cast her. “I can’t stress this enough: She doesn’t do a bad take,” Green says. “She could do a wrong take [but] every choice that she makes is cinematic.” The film, which features Juliette Lewis, Amber Midthunder, and John Malkovich, was filmed in New Mexico. (“I loved working with John,” Edebiri says. “I felt like every day was acting school.”) And then there’s Ella McCay, a comedy from James L. Brooks featuring Emma Mackey as the lead, with Albert Brooks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rebecca Hall, Woody Harrelson, and Kumail Nanjiani. The Rhode Island set was a reunion of sorts for Edebiri and Curtis, who crossed paths while Curtis guest starred as Carmy’s mom on season two of The Bear. Though they didn’t have any scenes together, Edebiri had been on set shadowing the show’s creator, Christopher Storer, as he directed Curtis’s scenes.
“We were sitting on a staircase together talking about loving the work of an actor, but also the work of the director,” Curtis tells me over the phone. Edebiri asked Curtis how she likes to be directed. “I’m not an intellectual, so I don’t need a lot of words; you could just whisper in my ear a color, which would then change my performance,” Curtis had told Edebiri. The next day, between takes of the now infamous dinner table scene in the “Fishes” episode, Edebiri whispered “purple” to Curtis and walked away. “What purple meant was ‘wound,’ ” Curtis says, “that color that a wound turns. That was a very intimate moment between she and I—I believe that’s the take they used in the show. It was incredible.”
In Curtis, Edebiri saw the type of actor she’d like to become, a veteran still eager to do the work. “They’re not settled and they’re not bored,” she says. “That makes me feel very heartened because I hope that when I am at that stage of my life, if I’m so lucky to have that, that I still am searching and questioning and excited.”
The titular character in Ella McCay is a politician preparing to become governor. When I ask Edebiri how she feels about the real-life presidential election on the horizon, her response is succinct: “nervous.” Outside of voting, she doesn’t consider herself to be all that politically engaged, “but I think my standard is pretty high,” she says. “I grew up in a family where my parents were always volunteering at polling places and always making calls and stuff. I have memories of doing my homework at call centers for Elizabeth Warren and Obama.”
Because she knows activist is such an important label, it’s not one she gives herself. “A lot of public figures get in that space, and then they’re like, ‘Wait, that’s not what I do.’ So they leave and then people get upset at them. [Or] they’re saying things but they’re actually not [as] informed as they thought they were. It’s a tricky thing.”
The Edebiri I meet for dinner and over Zoom—with whom I’ve since exchanged texts about everything from nonalcoholic aperitifs to the hilarity of the ’80s dating show Love Connection—is simply “a matured version of who she was as a child,” her best friend since third grade Michelle Kim Nguyen tells me. “Ayo has always been this very quirky, vibrant, energetic, interesting person. We grew up looking at celebrities and you almost feel like they’re of another world. Walking down the street with Ayo and hearing someone scream ‘Yes, Chef’ is so funny. That she’s the same person she’s always been makes it even weirder.”
Clothing by Christopher John Rogers; boots by Loewe; earrings by Cartier.Photograph by RENELL MEDRANO; styled by STELLA GREENSPAN.
As much as Edebiri is savoring this time in her life and the current “go, go, go, go, go” pace of her career, the thought of having more time to scrapbook, put together 3D sushi puzzles, and watch murder mysteries sounds nice. “I have a lot of taste,” she says of her hobbies and interests. “I don’t know if I have good taste or bad taste, but I have a lot.” Slowing down “is not a negative thing to me. When I think of people whose careers I admire, there are ebbs and flows.”
In the thick of the awards shows and photo shoots and interviews that Edebiri was doing last year, when she was feeling overwhelmed, she had a conversation with a fellow actor. She keeps his name a secret but not his advice: “He was like, ‘Just remember why you’re doing this; remember the actual reason why you’re doing this, and it’ll be fine.’ ”
“Why are you doing all of this?” I ask.
“Because I love it.”
Hair, Lacy Redway; makeup, Marcelo Gutierrez; manicure, Maria Salandra; tailor, Maria Del Greco; set design, Julia Wagner. Produced on location by Ice Studios. For details, go to VF.com/credits.
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