Haley Lu Richardson is on a Zoom call from a New York hotel to promote her new movie "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die," and she's two-and-a-half weeks into a sickness she can't seem to shake.

"I'm on literally every drug that the doctor has to give," says the actress, fighting through the congestion in her system. "I've been on antibiotics for a week, I have like three different cough suppressants, three different nose sprays, I have an inhaler steroid, and I'm on my second matcha of the day.

"And I'm PMS-ing," she says, matter-of-factly.

Other than that, things are going wonderfully for the Phoenix native. She broke through playing a best friend role in 2016's "The Edge of Seventeen" and has been steadily climbing Hollywood's ladder ever since.

She was a teenager with cystic fibrosis in 2019's young adult romance "Five Feet Apart" and a pregnant teen in 2020's "Unpregnant." She stole scenes as the aimless assistant to Jennifer Coolidge's character in the second season of "The White Lotus," and she's one of the stars of Peacock's "Ponies," which debuted last month, in which she and Emilia Clarke play secretaries-turned-spies in 1970s-era Moscow.

Now comes "Good Luck," in which Richardson plays Ingrid, a loner who is recruited to help save the world when Sam Rockwell's unnamed time traveler busts through the door of the L.A. diner where she's eating.

Richardson says she was drawn to the "bats— insane" satirical sci-fi black comedy because it was the most fun script she's ever read, while also being unsettling and thought-provoking and thematically heavy and...

"Uh-oh, I have to sneeze," she says, bracing for a sneeze that, maddeningly, never arrives. "You know when you have to sneeze, and it won't come out, and it hurts? Oh, Lord!" Another pause. "OK, I guess it passed."

Richardson isn't afraid of detailing her sinus functions or stripping away any sense of glam from her persona.

She's the same person who titled her debut book of poetry "I'm Sad and Horny," and promoted the book by going on talk shows dressed as a clown. She also made a memorable appearance twerking on NBC's "Today" show during her "White Lotus" run.

"I kind of black out on those talk shows, and then I'm done and I'm like, 'what the heck did I just say?'" she says. "Did I talk about the movie at all, or did I just talk about farts and crocheting and the Jonas Brothers?"

Richardson — she goes by Haley, "but I do feel like my personality is in line with a Haley Lu," she says — is doing her best to just be herself, she says. And that's an ongoing journey in and of itself.

As a child, she started off dancing and appearing in theatrical productions, and she landed her first professional acting gigs in 2012, when she was 17-years-old.

Now at 30, she says she's learning to follow her instincts and go with the flow.

"I just really want to trust my gut, because I've been developing a really good relationship with myself," she says. "I feel like I've surrendered more recently to the fact that our identities change all the time. So I'm not being hard on myself when I'm not the same person with the same dreams that I was when I was 22."

Some of her relationship with herself came from her experience shooting "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die," which confronts our obsession with phones, our inability to pull ourselves away from screens and the complacency society has been lulled into as a result.

Making the movie — the film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa — made Richardson reevaluate her relationship with her device, she says.

"I think this movie really did affect me," she says of playing a character who is literally allergic to Wi-Fi. "I spent like 20 hours a day, five days a week, without my phone. And it definitely made me more observant, more present, in a beautiful way."

She also ditched Instagram while filming, and said the lack of social media dopamine and distraction made her feel more connected to herself and the world around her.

"It makes you feel your feelings more. It allows you to be more productive, more creative, more inspired, all of that," she says. "But also you've gotta face your feelings, because you don't have anything to distract you from them. So it was an instigator of facing my feelings, and it started a whole journey for me."

Now, Richardson says, she's journaling more, writing more poetry, and digging deeper with her therapist.

"I'm facing real things within myself and connecting more deeply in my relationships, because I've met myself more deeply. It was really eye-opening," she says.

And she's hoping that will guide her, both professionally and personally. She'll appear in the upcoming "zi," her third collaboration with "After Yang" and "Columbus" filmmaker Kogonada, which premiered at last month's Sundance Film Festival.

After that, "I feel like I'm open to what's right for me," says Richardson. "I've been more open to really learning and being present, and I'm excited to keep being open with every year and every day."

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'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die'

MPA rating: R (for pervasive language, violence, some grisly images and brief sexual content)

Running time: 2:14

How to watch: Now in theaters

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