Interview: Mary-Louise Parker and Ayo Edebiri on ‘Omni Loop’
Equal parts funny, thrilling and heartbreaking, Omni Loop, the latest film from director Bernardo Britto, is a wildly inventive sci-fi drama that follows a quantum physicist who finds herself stuck in a time loop, with a black hole growing in her chest and only a week to live. When she meets a gifted student during one of her time loops, they team up to save her life – and to unlock the mysteries of time travel in the process.
Starring Mary-Louise Parker as Zoya, the quantum physicist stuck in the time loop, and Ayo Edebiri as Paula, the young student who makes it her mission to help Zoya uncover the mechanics behind the time loop, Omni Loop is more interested in exploring the dynamics of its characters, who they are and what makes them tick, rather than the science behind the time loop that the film depicts. With the help of Parker and Edebiri, both of whom turn in endlessly charismatic but also incredibly nuanced performances, Britto is able to establish these characters as incredibly complex, wholly relatable human beings with their own fears, anxieties and emotions that audiences will undoubtedly be able to relate to.
Asked how she became involved with the project, Parker says she first came across Britto’s work in 2020, specifically his animated short film Hudson Geese that follows a goose as he tells the story of the last time he migrated. “I was just completely blown away by it,” she recalls. “It made me cry. I was amazed by it. And then we had a three-hour long conversation on the phone. I don’t even like to talk on the phone, but we got disconnected and I left him a message saying, ‘I’m just having a popsicle. If you want to keep talking, you can call me back,’ and then we talked for another hour. I have tried not to go away [for work] for certain chunks of my kids’ life, like during the school year, but [Britto] really worked on the schedule [to make it work]. I was able to bring [my daughter] down [to set] and my son was in college, so it just worked really well. I felt like I just couldn’t not do it.”
Edebiri, on the other hand, says she jumped at the opportunity to work with Parker, immediately signing on as soon as she learned that the actress would be a part of it. “I signed on after Mary Louise was attached,” she says. “I was like, ‘Okay, I literally get to work with one of the heads on the actress Mount Rushmore. Great!’ But then I read the script and I was so moved by it. I started as a writer, I’ve read a lot of scripts. But I literally could not stop crying. I was freaked out and was like, ‘At the very least, I need to have a conversation with the man who is responsible for this, to hold him accountable and cancel him.’ No, but we were Zooming, and then I was like, ‘Oh, my laptop’s about to die, we’ve been talking for three hours!’ I was just really moved by who he was as a person, what he wanted to say with this movie and why he wanted to make it. The intersection of intentional and gentle that it explored. And knowing it was Mary-Louise and that I’d be working with people who have so much consideration in their hearts, it made me feel like I would be the biggest fool in the world not to [sign up for the movie and get to] hang out in Florida with these fools.”
It would be an understatement to say that Omni Loop lives and dies by the chemistry of its leads, both of whom are completely in sync with each other. They both know exactly what type of film they’re in and what they want to achieve with their performances, and they work hard to capture the earnest, almost heartwarming dynamic between their characters in a way that will make viewers care about them and their dual journeys. While Zoya is attempting to find a way to cheat death, throwing herself into time loop after time loop to find a cure for or solution to her plight, Paula is merely trying to find her place and purpose in this world, hoping that by helping Zoya, she could eventually be a part of something bigger than her.
“It felt instant for me,” says Parker of her chemistry with Edebiri. “The first time that I even met her over Zoom, it was like a puzzle that fit really really well together. Sometimes, you feel that in the room and it doesn’t necessarily translate during the work. But this was just wonderful. She’s really obviously super-smart but she also has a way of being really interesting and interested in the other person, being aware of the other character and the other person. When you don’t have that, everything is one-sided and it doesn’t become a comprehensive experience.”
“Sometimes you just get lucky as far as alchemy is concerned,” agrees Edebiri. “You never know what’s going to reflect back from the work. We just got really fortunate. Being in those spaces and having to discover each other every time, I felt like that was also happening in real life. [She was] surprising me and moving me in new ways, and it was just amazing to work with her.”
Omni Loop walks a very fine line when it comes to genre, straddling the line between comedy and drama, all against an undeniably sci-fi setting. In any other filmmaker and actors’ hands, the film could have very much come across as alienating and confusing as it continuously cycles through tones, feelings and emotions. As Zoya grows and matures in her journey, so does the film, and thanks to Parker and Edebiri’s pitch perfect performances, Omni Loop never loses its emotional core. Britto masterfully weaves all of the film’s different elements together, ensuring that the sci-fi setting enhances rather than overshadows the human story at the heart of the film.
“Bernardo had a sense of tone,” says Edebiri of her process in ensuring that her performance in the film remained in-tune with the rest of it. “And I also think as we worked together and found our rhythm and our rapport, that also helped with the building of the dynamic [between our characters]. We just had to dig deep and find our characters, like what’s true for Zoya? What’s true for Paula? And then also, what’s true for the both of them together? I loved exploring that dynamic between them. I loved working with Mary-Louise.”
As for what’s next, Parker is set to appear in the Agatha Christie-inspired The Auction alongside Raul Castillo, Audra McDonald, Richard Kind and more. Edebiri, meanwhile, just wrapped production on Luca Guadagnino‘s highly anticipated next feature, After the Hunt, in which she stars alongside Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. “[Julia and Andrew were] toxic. Really, really toxic. Nasty people. Never knew their lines,” jokes Edebiri when asked about her experience on set. “They’re literally two of the greatest people I’ve ever worked with. It was so amazing [working on that film] and something I also feel very, very lucky for is that, because it’s a tricky script and tough material, I was just so fortunate to be with really thoughtful. kind people throughout the process who are also really careful and inquisitive. I’m excited for people to see it and have these conversations [about it]. I think it’s definitely a different feeling from me, but I felt like it was like school in the best way every day. I was learning so much seeing how Luca shoots, seeing how Julia is on set and how she inhabits a character. Same with Andrew. And Michael Stuhlbarg is in it. Chloe Sevigny is in it. Lio Mehiel is in it. All these people whose work I love. It was really cool to get to work together. I’d wake up being like, ‘Somebody’s gonna tell me this is a joke, right? I’m being pranked or something. Did I win a competition?’ But yeah, it was fun!”
Omni Loop is now playing in limited theaters and is also available on VOD.
