In 'Hit Man', Adria Arjona found the role of her life

Adria Arjona went skydiving to overcome the anguish of missing out on a coveted role.

“It's a little extreme, but it worked,” Arjona, 32, says by phone days before the crime-based romantic comedy “Hit Man” debuted Friday on Netflix. “While I was on the plane I thought, 'I'm going to leave all this negativity behind. [here]. I'll jump, ground myself, and completely forget about it. What's in the air no longer belongs to me.' “

With “Hit Man,” the actor certainly stood out. The critically acclaimed is the latest from prolific Texan director Richard Linklater and has already become a breakthrough project for Arjona's growing profile in Hollywood.

“I find her incredible,” Linklater said, describing Arjona as a “wonderfully intelligent and hard-working collaborator from the first rehearsal to the last production shot.”

In the film, Glen Powell plays a psychology professor who works undercover for a police department, posing as a hitman. Arjona plays Madison, who seeks her services to eliminate her abusive husband. The two become entangled in a passionate, morally complicated and high-stakes relationship.

Daughter of the famous Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona, she was born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother, but spent her childhood in Mexico City when she was not on tour with her father.

“It's a fun little debate that happens online,” Arjona says. “Everyone says, 'She's Guatemalan' or 'She's Puerto Rican,' and I say, 'I'm both and I carry both of my flags high.' I can not choose”.

Despite growing up surrounded by music, Arjona was never willing to follow in her father's footsteps. “I can not sing! It would have embarrassed our last name,” she said jokingly.

“I always thought that my dad's job is the best job in the world, but I wanted to do something different. I rebelled against music and walked away from it. If I'm honest, I'm really sorry now.”

When he was a teenager, Arjona's family moved to Miami. Struggling to adapt to his new surroundings, he began taking acting classes at the suggestion of his father. Acting, she says, helped her come out of her shell.

“If I don't hide behind a character, it's very difficult for me to act or be the center of attention,” he said. “I feel comfortable putting on a costume and being on stage, but I never could and still can't speak in public. I had to give a speech for Glen a couple of weeks ago when we were in Austin and he was shaking like a chihuahua.”

As an adult, Arjona moved to New York to study at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, where she worked as a waitress to pay her bills.

“I feel very lucky to have a father who gave me the greatest gift in the world, which is not giving me everything. “He made it his mission to raise me and my siblings,” she said. “He grew up very poor in Guatemala and had to work to get to where he is.”

Arjona initially tried to break into theater but felt there wasn't much room for a Latin American actress. Instead, she decided to try her luck in film and television, and landed a small role after her first audition. Over the last decade, Arjona has built up her resume by landing roles in high-profile productions.

(Brian Bowen Smith/Netflix)

Among his most notable films are the Netflix action films “6 Underground” and “Triple Frontier”; In the latter he shared the screen with another actor with Guatemalan roots, Oscar Isaac. Arjona was also cast as bride-to-be Sofía Herrera in the 2022 Latin remake of “Father of the Bride” and plays mechanic Bix Caleen in “Star Wars: Andor.”

“Getting the jobs wasn't difficult, but the struggle was getting the roles that really served me as an actress,” she said. “I want to show the world that a Latin American woman has so many dimensions and we can be so many things.”

Arjona says he is now at a point in his career where he is being offered opportunities he wouldn't have had a few years ago. She remembers Linklater telling her that she was the only person he talked to for the role of Madison in “Hit Man.”

“We were nervous because Madison demanded so many qualities in one person,” Linklater said. “Smart, funny, vivacious, mysterious and, of course, so hot that you would totally believe someone would risk everything they have and have worked for their entire life, including their potential freedom, just to be with him. Adria is all those things.”

After meeting Arjona via video call, the filmmaker arranged for her to connect with Powell, who also co-wrote the script. The two actors got along so well that by the end of their five-hour dinner, they had broken their “dry January” vows by drinking tequila.

“Glen said, 'Can we do this together? “I want you to be Madison,” she said.

Within days, Arjona was on Zoom with Linklater and Powell writing the role of Madison.

“That's how Rick works. He invites the actors into the collaborative process and you're in the writer's room with him and you're creating your character with your director and your co-star. You’re writing lines, you’re throwing out ideas,” he said. “That's never happened to me.”

The process gave Arjona a creative autonomy and ownership over her character that she believes were crucial to creating and ultimately understanding Madison's personality.

“I loved the idea that she was constantly playing roles,” Adria Arjona says of her character, Madison, on “Hit Man.” In a scene with Glen Powell as Gary.

(Brian Roedel/Netflix)

“I loved the idea that she was constantly playing roles. She is this woman who seeks to reinvent herself with every turn of the page. She is her own idea of ​​a femme fatale, but she is not a femme fatale,” Arjona said. “She is playing a character within being a character. And I found that really interesting and I had a lot of fun playing.”

For Arjona, “Hit Man” represented an opportunity to truly showcase his acting skills.

“Thanks to this film I feel much more confident about what I can contribute,” she says. “Rick and Glen did that for me.”

And what's next? Arjona is scheduled to star in “El Sobrerón,” the new genre story by Guatemalan author Jairo Bustamante. Later this year, she will also be seen in the thriller “Blink Twice,” alongside Channing Tatum. Her strategy of not having a set plan seems to be paying off, successfully avoiding being pigeonholed by an industry that still has a limited view of who Latinos are.

“I am much more than the place where I was born. I have it in my veins. I carry it with me with pride, but I am also a human being,” she said. “You are your experiences, and being Latina is definitely part of my experience, but there is also so much more. “I'm just a woman.”