Adria Arjona is not crazy, but she’ll gladly let you think her character in Hit Man might be. “First dates are the biggest lies in the world,” she tells me, laughing, as she breaks down her femme fatale in Richard Linklater’s latest genre romp. The Netflix film, co-starring the ever-charming Glen Powell, dives headfirst into mistaken identities, reinvention, and the kind of “crazy in love” Beyoncé wrote anthems about. But Arjona insists her character Madison isn’t unhinged—just a master of personal rebranding.
“She’s in constant reinvention of herself,” Arjona says. “She’s figuring out what kind of femme fatale she wants to be.” It’s not hard to buy that line when you watch her onscreen chemistry with Powell, a dynamic so hot it might as well come with a fire extinguisher. And that wasn’t by accident. Arjona came armed with a mood board, art references, and enough sensual inspiration to fuel an entire Vogue spread. “There was this picture with a stocking… that became the sock scene,” she reveals. “We’d bring in these images, like, what if this becomes that?”
Of course, in a movie about role-playing and deception, things get complicated fast. Madison hires Powell’s character, Ron, to kill her husband—but this isn’t your typical noir. “Who can be trusted?” is the movie’s central game, and Arjona relishes every minute of it. “I think we all do this a little bit—change depending on who we’re with,” she says. “Madison just takes it further.”
Working with Linklater, she says, ruined her for other directors—in the best way. “He comes from a place of no ego. He’s one of my favorite directors, period,” she gushes. Arjona thought she was signing up for improv. Linklater shut that down immediately. “I hate it,” he told her, and instead gave her two weeks of rehearsals where the script became a living, breathing thing. “It’s so liberating to prep that much and then feel completely free on set,” she says, still buzzing from the experience.
The film’s steamy scenes? All their idea. “We wrote those together,” Arjona says. “Then we got to set and realized—we have to do these now!” She laughs, but it’s clear that level of collaboration made the onscreen sparks all the more real.
And the mood board? Not just for show. Arjona loves building her characters from art. “I’ll go to a museum and pick one painting or sculpture, and just let that energy guide me,” she explains. Madison might not have a theme song, but she’s a five-song playlist, “always skipping, always changing.”
From small indies like Hit Man to massive ensembles like Andor and Blink Twice, Arjona moves easily between scales. “The process is the same,” she shrugs. “Know your piece of the puzzle, and you’re good to go.” But don’t expect her to drop Andor spoilers. “Whatever you think Tony [Gilroy] is going to do, you’re wrong,” she teases. “I had predictions for Bix… I was so wrong.”
Between redefining seduction, taking part in one of Linklater’s tightest scripts, and bracing for more Star Wars madness, Arjona is crafting her own form of reinvention—just maybe with less homicide than Madison.
For an in-depth conversation about Hit Man, Arjona's acting process, and her future projects, tune in to the full interview above and then check out the trailer below.
