NEW YORK − When it came time to step into the lead role of her latest film, Adria Arjona had a guiding principle: Do as Diego Luna would.
With the new action thriller “Onslaught” (in theaters Sept. 4), Arjona, 34, says it was “incredibly exciting” to be the centerpiece of a movie, coming off roles as co-leads or supporting characters in films like “Hit Man,” “Splitsville” and “Blink Twice.” When thinking about how to approach the opportunity, she looked at Luna, her costar on the “Star Wars” series “Andor.”
“Diego was a big inspiration,” Arjona says during a recent visit to USA TODAY’s studio. “I’m like, ‘When I’m No. 1 on the call sheet, I want to be like him.’ He’s so supportive to his actors. He’s incredibly collaborative with his directors. Even though he’s a director himself, he never gets in the way of a director. He’s a very intensive listener, which I admire a lot.”
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Adria Arjona poses for a portrait at USA TODAY headquarters in Manhattan on Sept. 2, 2026.
Arjona goes through the wringer with “Onslaught,” in which she plays an Army sniper, Celeste, fighting to protect her daughter after rogue super-soldiers attack their trailer park. The movie, which was shot at night in the windy New Mexico desert, was “without a doubt” the most physically taxing Arjona has worked on.
Below-freezing temperatures and the water-based fake blood smeared across Arjona’s face proved to be a brutal combination.
“Every time I would step outside, it would freeze on my face, and it was incredibly painful,” she says, adding that at one point, “We had to stop filming because equipment was freezing.”
Celeste, Adria Arjona’s character in “Onslaught,” is a former Army sniper suffering from PTSD.
Another issue? After an injury, Celeste spends the second half of the movie with her left eye covered. As a result, Arjona experienced vertigo and dizziness and was “bumping into things” on the set.
“I certainly messed up my left eye, for sure,” she jokes. “I have done some serious damage to my vision because of ‘Onslaught.’ So please, go watch it!”
Arjona did a number of stunts, too, including jumping out a window, though the scariest was running down stairs holding Blake Kennedy, the young actress playing her daughter, Daisy. “They taught me how to fall just in case. If I fell, how would I protect Blake? They were like, ‘You can break a rib, but do not break the kid.’ “
Arjona drew upon her relationship with her 16-year-old brother to play a mom who will stop at nothing to protect her child.
“I was 18 when he was born, so I almost felt like I had a baby at 18,” she says. “He’s my baby, even though he’s 6 foot 2 and has a really low voice.”
Watching interviews with veterans also helped her understand her character, who suffers from PTSD.
“We really abandon the people that defend us the most,” she says. “I knew it, and I was very well aware of it, but to put a face to it was really hard. It really broke my heart.”
There comes a time in every actor’s life when they must dodge questions about an upcoming superhero film, and for Arjona, that time is here after being cast in a mysterious role in the “Superman” sequel “Man of Tomorrow.” Many fans are campaigning for Arjona as DC’s new Wonder Woman, though some reports say she’s playing Maxima.
Nothing has been confirmed. This has put Arjona in the position of having to cautiously field questions about the movie without spoiling anything, which she says has been “horrible.”
In “Onslaught,” Adria Arjona plays Celeste, a former Army sniper fighting to protect her daughter from rogue super-soldiers.
“I feel like I’m going to get in trouble every time. Every time I hear ‘Man of Tomorrow,’ I’m like, ‘Here it goes,’ ” she says, noting that she gets “so nervous” because she’s terrible at keeping secrets. “I tell people what their birthday presents are all the time.”
Arjona says she’s never pushed herself physically for a role the way she did for DC: “We did a lot of lifting weights and cardio and a very heavy protein diet, something that I’ve never really done for a character.”
The star also recalls getting the DC casting news on Zoom with her brother and other family members nearby.
Jason Momoa, left, joins partner Adria Arjona at the Los Angeles premiere of “Onslaught” on Aug. 26, 2026.
“It felt really special to receive such great news surrounded by the people you love, and receiving news from the people that you really admire and love and have been friends with for a long time,” she says. James Gunn and Peter Safran, co-CEOs of DC Studios, produced Arjona’s first major movie, 2017’s “The Belko Experiment.”
With the role, Arjona is also joining her partner Jason Momoa in the DC Universe: The “Aquaman” actor, who played Lobo in “Supergirl,” supported Arjona on the red carpet at the “Onslaught” premiere.
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Before “Man of Tomorrow,” Arjona will be seen in “The Thomas Crown Affair” remake (in theaters March 5); Michael B. Jordan directs and stars. Jordan was an “amazing dude to work with,” and Arjona was “in awe” of him as a director. The movie shot in 2025, and Arjona remembers accurately predicting on the set that Jordan would win the 2026 best actor Oscar for “Sinners.”
“I was like, ‘You’re going to get nominated for an Oscar.’ And he was like, ‘Stop. Let’s focus on the scene.’ I was like, ‘You’re going to win an Oscar,’ ” she says. “He’s so humble. … And then he won, and I think it’s my first time being like, ‘I told you so!’ “
“Andor,” meanwhile, ended in 2025, but might there be a chance of revisiting her “Star Wars” character of Bix Caleen one day?
“I’m not going to close the door. Obviously, I would love to play Bix again. It’s the only character I’ve tattooed on my body,” says Arjona, who has a letter X, for Bix, on her arm.
It’s been a whirlwind past few years for Arjona, who is still “trying to process” her success. “The hardest thing is to kind of sit down and be really grateful for the moment. … So I’m trying to do that.”
A decade into her career, she’s hoping she’s “as excited about my job as I am today” another 10 years down the line. Perhaps by then, she’ll have checked one major item off her bucket list: hosting “Saturday Night Live.”
“That’s one of my biggest dreams ever,” she says. “But you know what scares me about that? The monologue. It’s an opportunity you just cannot say no to. You’ve just got to do it. But it’s the scariest thing in the world.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Adria Arjona reveals the painful cost of making ‘Onslaught’