Adria Arjona’s Badass Turn in “Onslaught” and What Comes Next

When Adria Arjona first stepped onto the set of A24’s new thriller‑action hybrid Onslaught, the backdrop wasn’t a glossy studio backlot – it was a real, run‑down trailer park that looked like it could be ripped down tomorrow. “There was one trailer we weren’t even allowed to go inside because it was dangerous,” she recalls, laughing a little as she remembers the chilly August morning when the crew were trying to keep the fake blood from freezing on their skins.

Director Adam Wingard, known for his gritty, “down‑and‑dirty” style in movies like You’re Next and the Godzilla‑Kong crossover, leaned into that raw atmosphere. The story follows Celeste (Arjona), a former Marine who must protect her daughter and the neighborhood from three rogue super‑soldiers that escaped a shady government lab. It’s a compact, punchy ride that feels like a spiritual sibling to Wingard’s cult classic The Guest, which asked the unsettling question: what if Captain America turned out to be a killing machine?

Arjona isn’t new to the kind of high‑octane, blood‑splattered world that Wingard cultivates. She’s already swung a lightsaber‑like weapon in Tony Gilroy’s Andor, cracked jokes and dodged bullets in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, and showed off a darker side in Zoë Kravitz’s thriller Blink Twice. Now, she’s gearing up for a big‑screen romance‑heist with Michael B. Jordan in the reboot of The Thomas Crown Affair, and a mysterious role in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman sequel, tentatively titled Man of Tomorrow.

“I want to be a badass,” Adria says, shrugging as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “When you get to play a powerful version of yourself, it seeps into real life – it’s contagious.” She adds that the appeal isn’t just about looking cool with a rifle or a lightsaber; it’s about embodying characters who are useful with their hands, whether that’s fixing a star‑fighter or protecting a child.

The practical side of the shoot, however, proved messier than the script. During a freezing night‑time fight, the blood mixture – primarily water – solidified on her face, causing a brief bout of frostbite. The crew solved it by thinning the fake blood with oil, but they also chased an oddly specific shade: “It had to match the color Tarantino used in Kill Bill,” Arjona jokes. After a few trials, they nailed the crimson hue that made the gore feel cinematic, not cartoonish.

When asked about horror, another of Wingard’s favorite territories, Arjona admits she gets a little jittery. “I love the genre, but yeah, it scares me a little,” she laughs. Her first film, The Belko Experiment, was a brutal survival story that introduced her to that blend of tension and gore. Working with Wingard and a script by James Gunn, she feels she’s found a sweet spot where horror, sci‑fi and pure action intersect.

For Arjona, the draw of these projects isn’t just the spectacle. “The hardest part is finding the emotional thread,” she explains. “You can’t just be a walking action figure; you have to feel something underneath.” That search for depth, she says, is what makes the role fun and what keeps audiences invested.

As Onslaught rolls out of theaters this fall, fans can expect to see Adria Arjona continue carving out a niche as one of Hollywood’s most versatile, hard‑charging women. Whether she’s duking it out in a trailer‑park or plotting a heist in Manhattan, she’s clearly in the midst of her own “badass era.”