Ayo Edebiri Respecting the Rules of Time Travel is So Me Coded For Real

feature image photo of Ayo Edebiri by Frazer Harrison / Staff via Getty Images

I get often stressed about time travel. I suppose you may be wondering if I’m exaggerating when I say often. Like, how “often” could time travel possibly be coming up in my life that it would be a point of great concern? WELL BITCH, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU, BUT IT COMES UP OFTEN. All time travel films, regardless of tone, are horror movies imo. I don’t think y’all understand how Brave I was for recapping the television program Outlander for The A.V. Club for years as someone with a fixation on time travel that sometimes turns into fear. I wrote 67 episodic reviews of the romantic fantasy time travel series Outlander. That’s over 75,000 words about Outlander. And do you know how hard it was to not let every review devolve into a panic spiral about the logistics and ripple effects of time travel? I lost SLEEP over this!!!!!!

Well, we all know representation matters, and today I had the pleasure of feeling seen and understood by one Ayo Edebiri, fresh off her SAG Award win for Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her excellent performance in The Bear. In a press interview after the win, a reporter asked her what she would say to her younger self about this moment. Her answer? NOTHING. And she’s CORRECT. Because to do so would be to ALTER THE COURSE OF HER LIFE.

“I would say nothing to her, obviously just because of the rules of time travel. I’ve never been visited by myself in the future and so I think if that happened to me, I would not make the decisions, you understand, it’s like, it’s Tenet logic.”

You can count Tenet among the various science-fiction stories that has BROKEN MY BRAIN during my life time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can watch time travel things and not become overly preoccupied by the mechanics and twisted logic of the time travel itself, who can let it all just wash over them and “enjoy” the story “without spiraling.” Must be nice to have such a SMOOTH and UNCOMPLICATED brain! Ayo, however, understands that an innocent question about speaking to one’s younger self is not so innocent at all. If taken at face value, it could rip apart the seams of reality and the space-time continuum, and that’s not so fun to think about after winning a well deserved award, IS IT?

Anyway, congrats to Ayo on her wins (The Bear also won for best ensemble in a comedy). I wonder what she thinks about the television program Outlander.

@accesshollywood

Ayo Edebiri stays undefeated in #AwardSeason 🐐👑🐐👑🐐 #SAGawards

♬ original sound – Access Hollywood

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 946 articles for us.

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