There is something almost surreal about watching Adria Arjona transform into a one-woman army in Onslaught, the high-octane sci-fi action film that opened in theaters nationwide on September 4.

Best known for her compelling work in Hit Man, Blink Twice, and the 2022 reboot of Father of the Bride, Arjona has cultivated a reputation for playing confident, complicated, and powerful women. Yet, audiences have never seen her quite like this. As Celeste—a combat veteran and Army sniper thrust into a desperate fight to protect her young daughter from genetically engineered super soldiers—she is neither the conventional hot Latina love interest, nor the helpless damsel in distress, nor a secondary supporting character. In Onslaught, Arjona is unequivocally the hero.

Watching her throw devastating punches and systematically take down heavily armed soldiers with what one friend aptly described as "the physicality of a female Rambo" felt culturally significant, stretching far beyond the sheer entertainment value of the picture. Onslaught affords Arjona something that Latina actresses are historically rarely given in mainstream Hollywood: the absolute freedom to play a protagonist whose narrative arc has nothing to do with her ethnicity. In traditional Hollywood studio filmmaking, a role of this magnitude would likely have gone to a white male actor. Instead, Arjona anchors the sci-fi thriller with a fierce, uncompromising presence.

For decades, the entertainment industry has pigeonholed Latina actresses, operating under the assumption that their ethnicity must explicitly explain or justify their place in a narrative. Consequently, they have routinely been cast as fiery love interests, hypersexualized archetypes, struggling immigrants, or disposable sidekicks. Only a handful of performers—including rising stars like Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, and Isabela Merced—have managed to consistently navigate or sidestep this rigid typecasting.

Onslaught demonstrates what becomes possible when a Latina actress’s Latinidad is neither used as a convenient plot point nor reduced to a tired stereotype. Arjona’s powerhouse performance signals that Hollywood’s boundaries are finally expanding, proving that Latina actresses can successfully occupy complex lead roles originally written for anyone.

When I spoke with Arjona ahead of the film’s release, we discussed the unique challenges of taking on a role unlike any in her prior filmography and how the intense physical and emotional journey reflects her own personal and professional evolution.

"This role scared me, to be honest," Arjona tells HipLatina. "I think when I read it and then sat down with Adam [Wingard], he pitched me the whole movie and was so gracious to let me live in his brain for about an hour, which was fun and the reason why I decided to make the movie."

What frightened her most was the daunting task of capturing Celeste’s immense strength without flattening her character into a one-note action trope.

"There’s a balance of what I keep seeing and what I don’t want to do. What I don’t want to do is emulate a man and just be tough," she explains. "Women aren’t tough. We are strong, and we could be badasses. But being strong is not all tough."

Celeste enters the narrative as a fractured single mother who does not even hold full custody of her daughter. When the child is unexpectedly dropped off at her doorstep, Celeste finds herself thoroughly alarmed and completely unprepared, wrestling with the heavy burdens of her past. Arjona leaned directly into that profound tension to fully humanize the soldier-turned-mother.

"We have certain stereotypes as Latin American women specifically. We’re spicy. We’re fiery. We’re sexy. We’re this. We’re that," she observes. "And then I look around at my family, and I’m like, ‘I come from a really big family of a lot of women with a lot of very different personalities, and we are all so different that not all stereotypes can define us.’"

At the start of the film, Celeste is existing strictly in survival mode. Her apartment is a chaotic mess, littered with dirty dishes and empty beer bottles as she quietly navigates severe post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from her military service.

"Something interesting for Celeste specifically was the fact that she’s not the best mom. I think we’ve seen Latin women be incredibly nurturing, and we’re like, ‘Oh, Latin women love to cook. They love to clean the house. They’re caretakers,’" she points out. "What I spoke to Adam about was that I don’t want her to be a caretaker. I don’t want her to be a good mom. She is suffering from post-traumatic stress. She’s all messed up. She doesn’t have the [mental] capacity to deal with a child. And if she does, she needs a week’s notice. You cannot just drop this kid at my house because there’s beer, there’s cigarettes, there’s guns."

To authentically portray Celeste’s gritty resilience, Arjona drew inspiration from the formidable mothers in her own life, tapping into the primal, protective ferocity that defines maternal instinct under threat.

"That is the scariest thing in the world because it is feral. It is animalistic. It comes from your gut," she says. "That’s fucking badass. That’s not tough. That’s incredibly strong… and I’m not a mom, so I was like, ‘where do I find it?’ [But] I have a little brother who is 16—he’s my baby. He was born when I was 18, and I was like, ‘Oh, that almost feels like I had a child.’ So I really anchored myself in that relationship and in that truth."

Beyond the emotional depth, the role offered a liberating sense of professional freedom because Celeste’s ethnic identity never dictated the mechanics of the plot.

"Never was it a thing about being Latin. We never really touched it," she notes. "It was liberating because I am Latin and I’m so proud to be Latina all the way. I’m the most Latina, but I’m also just an actress. So being tied to an identity sometimes as an actress… you want to be free and open and play in different playgrounds. I don’t want [it] to limit me. I want it to be my superpower."

Arjona subtly wove her heritage into Celeste through deliberate choices in hair, makeup, and posture, while rigorous physical training prepared her for the punishing demands of the film’s action sequences.

"I think the bloodier you get, the more things kind of shift in you. But I had an amazing stunt double. Bethany—she’s incredible," Arjona recalls. "Towards the end, the more blood we had, the more stunts I actually had to do because Blake, who played my daughter, was a little scared of the blood."

Among the most grueling physical challenges was a sequence requiring her to execute a high-stakes leap out of a window while sprinting under fire and carrying her young co-star. Yet, Arjona’s growth on set extended far beyond her physical endurance, reflecting a newfound confidence in her collaborative voice as an artist.

"Five years ago I was quieter and more shy. I wouldn’t necessarily speak up about things," Arjona says, reflecting on her evolution within the industry. "I’ve worked with enough directors now where they’ve assured me like, ‘Girl, you have really good ideas,’ and they now come to me like, ‘Alright, how do we fix this? How do we do this?’ I think producing has also helped me understand the bigger picture and have a seat at the table."

She has actively used that hard-earned seat at the table as an invaluable opportunity to expand her mastery of filmmaking.

"The more understanding you have of a director’s vision—what the production value is, what the production is trying to do, how the marketing is—all those details not only make you a better actress, but a better businesswoman," she says. "And by the way, I’m still very much learning, and I’ll be learning forever. That’s how I want to approach my work."

This creative empowerment is evident in subtle moments throughout the film, such as a tender scene that Arjona personally wrote and pitched, in which Celeste teaches her daughter to eat a burrito with her hands rather than formal utensils.

"It was just a weird little idea that I had, and I love that moment between her and me. I would’ve never done that five years ago," she shares. "I wouldn’t have done it because I would have been afraid of rejection, and I also wouldn’t have done it because I would’ve been afraid of overstepping… Now I’m not afraid of someone telling me that’s a bad idea. I can take that."

Ultimately, Onslaught unlocked a deep well of professional confidence that allowed Arjona to finally cast aside her hesitations about occupying space in a room.

"I’m always like, take a step back. I don’t ever want to be too much. And I think with Celeste I was like, ‘F—k it. Whatever. Let’s go.’ It was so liberating—I loved every part of it," she reflects.

In Hollywood, Latina actresses have frequently been subjected to an unspoken prerequisite: the demand that they look impeccably glamorous regardless of the narrative circumstances, intertwining their professional value with adherence to the male gaze and traditional markers of femininity. Onslaught completely disrupts that dynamic. Celeste is entirely unconcerned with vanity, driven solely by the primal imperative of survival.

"There’s an element to her that is completely lost in vanity. She is the least vain human, and there’s so much freedom in that as well," Arjona says. "There’s too much other stuff to deal with, and Celeste doesn’t have time. Liberating myself from that was me not thinking about it [because] she wouldn’t think about it. I’m also covered in blood, so I was like, whatever."

By making her physical appearance entirely secondary to the character’s survival, Arjona has charted a new path forward. Rather than attempting to define the immutable boundaries of what a Latina actress can achieve, she is focused entirely on breaking them. When asked about her aspirations for the next phase of her career, she emphasizes that the most rewarding creative chapters are often those that defy initial imagination.

"I couldn’t have designed this chapter that I’m living right now five or 10 years ago. I would’ve done myself a disservice. I’ll do the same if I say what I want in the next 10 years," she says. "All I can hope for is to keep working and keep telling stories that resonate with me and hopefully resonate with [other] people. I want to keep telling stories about powerful, badass, cool women and represent and reintroduce what Latina women are and show all sides of it—the stereotypes, the non-stereotypes, the quirky, the this, the that. I eventually want to play every single female in my household—which is hard."

After years in an industry eager to prescribe narrow definitions for how Latina actresses should look and sound, Arjona remains resolutely focused on keeping her artistic horizons open. Through Onslaught, she proves decisively what happens when a formidable talent is finally granted the uninhibited freedom to surprise audiences.

This feature is part of our Latina Heritage Month series, Latina Maxxing.