Adria Arjona attends the Los Angeles Premiere of A24's "Onslaught" at Regal LA Live on August 26, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. Monica Schipper/Getty Images Logo text Adria Arjona’s career is all gas and no brakes — except for when she was driving her truck near the set of Onslaught.
The in-demand actor is currently juggling a bevy of projects, including the aforementioned gonzo horror-thriller from Adam Wingard, a top-secret role in James Gunn’s Superman (2025) follow-up, Man of Tomorrow, and Michael B. Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair. Arjona also has several indie films in various stages of production, and her female lead role in Ed Brubaker’s Criminal series, based on his own Marvel/Image comic book, is finally nearing release.
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When Arjona first met with Wingard to discuss Onslaught and her character, Celeste, a traumatized former Army sniper, she arrived in a 1979 Ford F-150. She suspects the truck may have helped her clinch the role, as Wingard had already envisioned Celeste driving something similar. After landing the part, Arjona even tried to get her real-life truck into the movie, but its bright orange paint job created some lighting challenges.
Arjona still drove her pickup to the New Mexico set, and there were days when the transportation department had to come to her rescue.
“I would get stuck in the middle of the highway. It’s a shitty truck. I bought it on cars.com. I shouldn’t have. It was so cheap, and now half of my bank account has gone toward trying to fix this truck,” Arjona tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Onslaught’s Sept. 4 theatrical release.. “It finally runs, but when I was filming this movie, it didn’t. So the transport department had to come pick me up in the middle of a highway a couple times so I wouldn’t be late to set.”
Celeste’s PTSD has driven her into isolation at a remote trailer park, far from her seven-year-old daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy). But when a work emergency forces Daisy’s father and Celeste’s ex-husband (Jacob Scipio) to drop her off unexpectedly, their reunion coincides with a nearby military experiment going catastrophically awry. Suddenly, Celeste must protect her daughter from three super soldiers who are programmed to kill anyone in their path.
When trouble first arrives at the Windy Oasis mobile home community, Celeste goes to retrieve one of her assorted weapons. This leads to the moment in the trailer when she spins a handgun’s cylinder in front of her cabinet or rack of guns.
“That shot [of her spinning the gun cylinder in front of her arsenal] was one of the hardest shots I’ve had to do. I had to nail it in maybe three takes because we were running out of time,” Arjona recalls. “On the first take, the entire armory fell on top of me. It was a trailer packed with so many people. If somebody moves, everything moves. Adam probably still has the footage. We were like, ‘Fuck! Shit! Put it back.’ We then had time for one last shot, and [prop master/armorer] Brett [Andrews] was like, ‘Breathe, focus, you got it.’ And that’s the take that’s in the trailer.”
Next summer, Arjona will appear as a mystery character in Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow. Consequently, many fans are wondering who she’s playing, forcing her to choose her words very carefully throughout Onslaught’s promotional campaign. In any event, Arjona felt right at home on set, particularly given her history with DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, who produced her first film, The Belko Experiment (2016), a decade ago.
“Man, it was so cool. It’s just so easy to step back onto a set with people that you feel familiar with because there’s already trust. That’s how I felt coming [onto the Man of Tomorrow set] and stepping into this role,” Arjona shares. “James Gunn and Peter Safran were right there, and I had all the trust. I have all the support. I was like, I’m good because they’ve got me.”
As for Andor, the Emmy-winning series left Arjona’s Bix Caleen in a position where further adventures could be explored involving her and her child (Cassian Jr.? Cassie?) with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). Arjona isn’t ruling out the possibility, but she’s also hesitant to do anything without series creator Tony Gilroy.
“Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is. If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him,” Arjona says. “I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it. It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.”
Prior to Andor season two, Arjona collaborated with Richard Linklater and Glen Powell on the romantic crime comedy, Hit Man, and she was heavily, yet unofficially, involved in the scripting process. For example, she not only wrote the film’s most memorable line of, “Who the fuck is Gary!?” but she also typed it into Linklater’s computer per his insistence. Riding high on that experience, Arjona received a much different response when she tried to pitch Gilroy some Bix material for Andor’s second go-round.
“I did call Tony with a bunch of ideas, and he was like, ‘No, no, no. Not this movie, baby.’ And I was like, ‘Damnit. Okay,’” Arjona says. “I was feeling very confident in my writing, but not with Tony Gilroy.”
Below, during a conversation with THR, Arjona also reveals the Onslaught character detail she brainstormed with her partner Jason Momoa.
***
Onslaught came your way as you were shooting Criminal and about to go shoot Splitsville a couple years ago. Considering Celeste is no walk in the park, what was your mindset at the time?
Right before I went to go meet [director] Adam Wingard, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this one. This is going to be tough.” Celeste is such a multi-layered character, and I was tired. I was a tired girl. Going from a heist show like Criminal and a comedy like Splitsville to this world, I was like, “Oh man.”
But within 30 minutes of meeting Adam, I was like, I’m in. I want to do it. It has to be mine. I’m obsessed with this dude. I’m obsessed with this script. He pitched me the opening 25 minutes of the film, and I was like, “That sounds bonkers. It sounds like the coolest movie ever.” He already had a lot of the ‘80s-inspired soundtrack as well, and it just feels like a John Carpenter movie.
I love passionate directors who take swings, and I was like, “I want to support you. I want to go into the trenches with you. Let’s go.” So there was no turning back after that, and I’m so happy I did it. I’m so honored.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught. Richard Foreman/A24 Onslaught is an indirect sequel to You’re Next and The Guest. It completes a spiritual trilogy. Did Adam ask you to watch those films for a tonal reference? Or did he want you to dig more into the ‘80s?
Adam has no ego whatsoever, so he would never tell me to watch his own movies. He’d be like, “Just stick to the script. Let’s focus on this one.” But he did make me watch some ‘80s movies: Aliens and Terminator.
Funnily enough, our main thing was music. We shared a lot of it. He had some songs that are all in German, and some choices for the opening sequence are just wild because it makes you question tonally where he’s going with the movie. It can be really funny at times, and then suddenly, there’s heavy action. It’ll be really gory, and you’ll be scared shitless, before it swings right back into comedy. So the songs he shared helped me understand where we were living, tonally.
Celeste’s relationship with her adorable seven-year-old daughter (Blake Kennedy’s Daisy) is rather interesting. Daisy behaves more like a grown-up than Celeste does. She’s highly organized with her rolling suitcase. She also does the dishes, waters the plants and has proper manners. It’s Celeste who behaves more like the messy kid, and she tries to teach her daughter to follow suit. How did you and Adam land on that reversal?
It was a conversation Adam and I had at the beginning. We were both so tired of seeing the perfect mom, and we both wanted to deconstruct that a little bit. It meant finding a way for Celeste to have a little bit more tough love. She’s like, “Dude, don’t waste your time on manners. There’s so much shit going on in the world. What are we doing?” She’s a vet; she doesn’t have time for that. Every time she feels something, she just pushes it down. But her ex is teaching their daughter to express her feelings and meditate. That’s not Celeste, and it doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother. But because we made those choices at the beginning, Onslaught really becomes a mother’s redemption story.
Did you come up with a backstory for what happened between Daisy’s father and Celeste? Did her PTSD just make it impossible for her to lead a domestic life with them?
Yeah, she lost a couple friends [during battle], and it traumatized her. To everybody else, Celeste is this weird conspiracy theorist who lives in this trailer park. She isolates herself because everybody thinks that she’s crazy, and at the end of the day, she was right.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught Richard Foreman/A24 As you mentioned, Celeste is shell-shocked from her time as an Army sniper. Her PTSD affects her ability to pull the trigger sometimes, and so she grounds herself by digging her ring into her forearm. What did you make of that trauma response or release valve?
That was my idea.
I figured it was.
Really?
I was the first journalist you told about the stick-and-poke tattoo you received on the set of Andor season two …
That’s true.
So I likely connected one form of skin trauma to another.
(Laughs.) Her tremor was in the script, and I was like, There has to be a release. There has to be something that counteracts it. What is it? I was actually discussing it with my partner [Jason Momoa], and we both came up with this idea. I then told Adam: “Yo, what do you think if we have this scab on her forearm? You can tell she’s been doing this for a long time.” And then, to be funny, I was like, “Can the ring be her old engagement ring and can it be empty?” That would mean she pawned the diamond and bought a rifle or a bunch of beer or something. So that’s how she inflicts pain on herself, and it’s the only feeling she’s comfortable experiencing.
I watched a lot of interviews of vets and soldiers who’ve gone on deployment, and [pain] is sort of their comfort. It’s where they feel at ease. That stayed with me, and it really traumatized me. I was like, Man, that’s horrible. We need to showcase that pain is a big character. So I told Adam all of that, and he looked at me and said, “You’re insane. Let’s try it.” And within two hours, he had a prosthetic made for us to try out.
I read something that suggested Celeste’s truck is actually your truck. Is that true?
Funnily enough, I drive a [1979] Ford F-150, and to be fair, I think that’s why Adam gave me the role. I drove it to our first meeting, and he was like, “Is that your truck? That’s what Celeste drives.” And I was like, “Oh, I’m like Celeste.” So that might be one of the reasons why he cast me.
I then brought my bright orange truck to New Mexico where we filmed, and no one wants to see a bright orange truck in a movie. Our cinematographer [Oren Soffer] was like, “That’s going to be hard to pull off.” So it ended up not being my truck in the movie, but I did have my truck on set.
It became a whole thing with transport because I would get stuck in the middle of the highway. It’s a shitty truck. I bought it on cars.com. I shouldn’t have. It was so cheap, and now half of my bank account has gone toward trying to fix this truck. It finally runs, but when I was filming this movie, it didn’t. So the transport department had to come pick me up in the middle of a highway a couple times so I wouldn’t be late to set.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught Richard Foreman/A24 We’re introduced to Celeste’s arsenal of weapons at the start of the movie, and Chekhov’s gun makes us think she’s going to wield them all at some point, especially the one her ex referenced. But then the movie puts her on her back foot the whole time and challenges her to defend her and her daughter in other ways.
Yeah, once you see her arsenal, you’re like, Oh, she’s going to save the day. But I love the fact that Reggie [VelJohnson] and Eric’s [Wareheim] characters have a chance to redeem themselves as neighbors in the process. Celeste kicks some ass, for sure, but she has help as well. That was the whole point of her not getting to use her arsenal, which I think was really smart.
That shot [of her spinning the gun cylinder in front of her arsenal] was one of the hardest shots I’ve had to do. I had to nail it in maybe three takes because we were running out of time. And Brett Andrews, our armorer and prop master, is the reason I look cool in this movie. He came into my trailer [to teach me that move], and I practiced it nonstop the whole day. We knew we didn’t have that much time for that shot, and it’s so close-up that any tiny little mistake was going to show.
On the first take, the entire armory fell on top of me. It was a trailer packed with so many people. If somebody moves, everything moves. Adam probably still has the footage, but the whole thing just fell on top of me. We were like, “Fuck! Shit! Put it back.” We then had time for one last shot, and Brett was like, “Breathe, focus, you got it.” And that’s the take that’s in the trailer.
So this is the part of the interview where the publicists in the gallery start biting their nails …
(Laughs.)
To play it safe, how was your reunion with James Gunn on the set of Man of Tomorrow? [Gunn wrote and produced her first movie, The Belko Experiment.]
Man, it was so cool. I haven’t had the opportunity to do sequels to a lot of things. Andor was the first time that I did a second season of something, and it felt so safe. So I understand why people [in franchises] are like, “Oh my God, we’ve been together for ten years.” It’s just so easy to step back onto a set with people that you feel familiar with because there’s already trust. You’re not trying to gain anything on that first day.
So that’s how I felt coming [onto the Man of Tomorrow set] and stepping into this role. James Gunn and [co-DC Studios head] Peter Safran were right there, and I had all the trust. I have all the support. I was like, I’m good because they’ve got me. I’ve only felt that once before on the second season of Andor, and it’s a great feeling because the first days on set are always scary.
Now that you’re one of the most employed actors in town, have you pitched a Bix and Cassian Jr./Cassie show to Lucasfilm yet?
Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is. If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him. I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it. It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.
Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) in Tony Gilroy’s Andor Season Two. Courtesy of Lucasfilm Earlier this year, Tony and I had a long conversation in which he welcomed my one quibble with season two. I wanted to see Bix go on a proper mission with Cassian (Diego Luna). When he went undercover on Ghorman as a fashion designer named Varian Skye, she could’ve served as his muse or model. To see them both wearing high fashion for a change, I just can’t get that image out of my head. Anyway, were you frustrated at all that Bix’s missions were mostly off screen?
No, because Tony challenged me in a different way. He instead gave me periods of time in Bix’s life to jump into that were very complex and complicated. I knew that I was able to play an action piece, but those emotional beats were really strong for Bix and really challenging for me. So I wasn’t necessarily frustrated because I respect Tony’s writing. I was like, Hmm. Okay, cool. There’s a reason and a rhythm to the way that he writes.
I never want to get in Gilroy’s way, even though I [pitched him some ideas] after writing the Hit Man script with Richard Linklater and Glen Powell. All three of us collaborated together. So I did call Tony with a bunch of ideas, and he was like, “No, no, no. Not this movie, baby.” And I was like, “Damnit. Okay.”
Yeah, you literally wrote Hit Man’s show-stopping “Who the fuck is Gary!?” line, so it sounds like you were feeling yourself after that.
(Laughs.) Yes, I was feeling very confident in my writing, but not with Tony Gilroy.
*** Onslaught opens September 4 in movie theaters nationwide.
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