Odeya Rush’s first role was on a Little House on the Prairie book cover, and her latest is on primetime TV opposite Patrick Dempsey. Somewhere in between those two moments, she built a career defined by its range, moving seamlessly between indie standouts like Lady Bird (she played the high school’s queen bee) and studio bets like the Jennifer Aniston-led Dumplin’ (in which she played the aspiring beauty queen’s best friend). “I’m not even looking at genre, more the package of the whole movie,” Rush tells her friend and former co-star Isabela Merced, who’s been on her own run recently in Superman, The Last of Us, and Alien: Romulus. (The two met on the set of 2019’s Netflix movie Let It Snow.) “If I trust the people I’m working with, then I feel like I can bring my best self to the role,” Rush says.
In Fox’s Memory of a Killer, Rush plays the daughter of a salesman by day and hit man by night who is struggling with Alzheimer’s. Spending a season opposite Dempsey gave Rush an opportunity to witness a masterclass from one of TV’s leading men and to explore a new facet of her wide-ranging interests. Here, she describes her co-star in all his “fatherly” charm and she and Merced reflect on the parallel inflection points in their careers.
Isabela Merced: You’ve worked across so many different kinds of projects—from The Giver and Lady Bird to comedies like Dumplin’—and now you’re stepping into a TV crime drama with Memory of a Killer. What excited you about entering that darker, more psychological world?
Odeya Rush: Honestly, for me it’s not even a genre thing. I read the pilot, and I thought it was so sick. I know something’s good when I eat it up really quickly. I like the whodunit of it all. I love shows like The White Lotus, Knives Out, or 13 Reasons Why because I was asking, “Who did it?”
Merced: If you were offered both a comedy and something really dark, which would you lean toward?
Rush: I just did the movie Goodbye Girl. I didn’t have a massive part in it, but all of my scenes were really comedic, and I walked away thinking that this is so fun for me. There’s something a little scarier about comedy. You’re either funny or you’re not funny. You either make people laugh or you didn’t make people laugh, and that’s an immediate reaction. You have to be super vulnerable. Recently I’ve mainly done dramas, so if it was the right one, I would love to do a comedy right now.
Merced: Tell us about acting opposite Patrick Dempsey. What has it been like building a new dynamic with him, especially in the charged world of the show?
Rush: He was very fatherly, I think because his kids are so important to him. He’s an amazing father. I met his son Darby when he came to set. Our connection as father and daughter onscreen felt really natural and warm. It never felt like something that needed to be manufactured. He even gave me advice on things and was really caring. He feels very comfortable taking that leadership position. He just cares so much.
Merced: Your upcoming projects span a diverse range of genres. There’s the horror satire of Corporate Retreat and the rom-com world of Goodbye Girl. Do you consciously look for roles that let you shift tones in new ways?
Rush: Corporate Retreat covered so many genres. There were a lot of really funny moments. We had such a good ensemble with Sasha Lane, Ashton Sanders, and Kirby Johnson. Then on Goodbye Girl, my scenes were with Kiernan Shipka—shout out. But for me, I’m looking at the whole package of the project I’m doing. In order to feel safe, as a very absorbent actor, if I trust the people I’m working with, then I feel like I bring my best self to the role. And I feel like I can play a lot more.
Merced: You’ve worked with a variety of notable ensembles across your projects. What do you enjoy most about working in a collaborative cast environment?
Rush: I really felt this on Corporate Retreat and Goodbye Girl. One of the things I love most about working on movies is that it feels like camp a lot of the time. I love all the in-between stuff, you know? Like on Corporate Retreat, the last week, we had night shoots, and everybody came into my room. We’d all hang out there between setups. I remember at one point, I think this was just me actually, I’m jumping on the bed. We’re eating candy together, we’re sharing stories, we’re talking about dating. It’s like summer camp, where you know these people for a month but suddenly you’re sharing such personal information with them because we bonded so quickly. You bond over the hard stuff, you bond over the fun stuff. And then with Goodbye Girl, it was really sweet—the amount of going out that the cast did in New Orleans. We went to karaoke, we went to dinners, and I hadn’t been there for too long, but they’re like, “We do this every weekend.” And not just with the cast, but with the crew. I got to see the script supervisor deliver an amazing rap doing karaoke, and everyone hyping him up.
Merced: Yeah, it’s really sweet. That’s how we met too, in an ensemble cast.
Rush: Yes, and we bonded really quickly!
Merced: I don’t usually expect actors to stay in touch, because it’s hard to tell if they’re genuinely trying to build a long-term connection or just developing on-set chemistry for the role. Out of a large cast, there’s usually only one person who stays in your life like that—and I’m really glad it was you. You started acting quite young and have essentially grown up in this industry. How has your relationship to your craft changed over the years?
Rush: We were talking about this yesterday, actually, because I was feeling quite stressed about work. I’ve always really valued my work—it’s been at the top of my priorities for most of my life. But over time, whether it’s age or simply being in the industry for so long, I’ve started to shift things a bit. The moment I began to loosen my grip and prioritize more personal aspects of my life—my health, my friendships, my dog, my family—I noticed something interesting: I actually started receiving more work opportunities.
When I have a task, I tend to approach it immediately, especially with work. But at a certain point, I realized I had tied a lot of my self-worth to it. If I was working more, I felt more confident. I think I was searching for a sense of purpose through it. Now, as I get older, I’m prioritizing relationships more. I want to build a family, and I know that will take precedence. So I feel like I’m in a much healthier place in my relationship to both myself and my craft.
Rush: Ok, now I’d like to ask you a question. I know you’re always working on music on the side. What’s your favorite lyric that you’ve written recently?
Merced: I can’t think of a specific lyric off the top of my head—everything I write kind of just lives in my head—but I did recently write a song called “The Man Purse.” I love the concept. It’s basically this idea that women have purses, and some men have… women, in that same way. It’s about a certain type of man who almost prefers a “human purse” because he can’t actually handle a woman.
It looks at relationships where women are replaced constantly—like leather, and you just get a new one. It’s this cycle of avoiding being alone. And the women in those dynamics are almost complicit—they stay small, quiet, easy, so the man can feel more like a man. He’s like, “She’ll be fine with cheating, or avoidance.” They’re loyal… like a purse. They won’t leave. They’re comfortable.
Rush: Wow, okay, is it in Spanish or in English?
Merced: I actually don’t know—it’s interesting. I’ll write some bars in Spanish and some in English, and I’ll just be like, I don’t know what to do now because it sounds better in Spanish, but then I like some lines better in English. That’s why most of my music is bilingual.
Rush: So sick, you’re so smart.
in your life?