Adam Wingard Wrote This 'Onslaught' Role Specifically for His '80s Childhood Hero

Image via A24 Published Sep 4, 2026, 6:05 AM EDT Sign in to your Collider account Summary Collider's Steve Weintraub talks with Adam Wingard and Adria Arjona for A24's Onslaught. The duo discusses Arjona taking on a wildly different role, her young co-star, and filming ultra-violent scenes in the brutally cold weather. Wingard also discusses writing roles for '80s icons Michael Biehn and Reginald VelJohnson. You may recognize Adam Wingard from his most recent work on the Godzilla x Kong blockbusters, but the filmmaker got his start working on indie genres with two widely beloved horror movies, You’re Next and The Guest. Now, he returns to his roots with A24’s Onslaught, starring Adria Arjona in an anarchic sci-fi horror set against the stark New Mexico desert. In the movie, Celeste (Arjona) is a former Army sniper who’s struggling to put her past behind her while raising her young daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), in a remote trailer park. When three Super Soldier experiments escape containment from a nearby government compound, Celeste is put to the ultimate test as she goes toe-to-toe with these violent weapons of war, utilizing every combat skill in her arsenal to protect her daughter and survive the night. Onslaught also stars Dan Stevens, Drew Starkey, Reginald VelJohnson, and Michael Biehn. During an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Wingard and Arjona sit down to chat about the ultra-bloody production and dealing with Albuquerque’s below-freezing temperatures. Wingard also shares how he knew Arjona was the right actor to take on the role of Celeste, plus why he wrote specific roles for ‘80s icons VelJohnson and Biehn, and more. You can watch the full conversation in the video above, with a transcript provided below. Adria Arjona Has What It Takes To Take Down Super Soldiers "I'm a messy girl." COLLIDER: I'm doing a supercut soon, so where do you like to sit in a movie theater? ADRIA ARJONA: I like to be a little bit higher up, right in the middle. I hate being close. ADAM WINGARD: See, I like being close because I feel like when I'm at home, you have that distance because your TV's just never going to be that big. So to me, part of the immersive thing… ARJONA: What about IMAX? Do you still want to be close? WINGARD: The only problem with being close on IMAX is the further down you go, then the screen gets kind of warped-looking. That's the only reason that I have any issues with that. But I tend to sit as close as I can. Certain theaters, it's different. Some of the more old-school theaters, like the Vista, the New Beverly, the Tarantino theaters, those are always front row theaters for me, because it's not too overwhelming. IMAX, I'm about five rows back, I think. Five rows from the bottom? Wow, that is very close. ARJONA: Very close. WINGARD: But there's a good spot kind of in the middle. Just below the middle is really nice. ARJONA: I'm crazy about sound, and I really think that a little bit higher up has a better sound. WINGARD: Yeah. Well, sometimes when you get too close in, especially the dialogue can be a little piercing, because you're just closer to that center channel. ARJONA: But you like that. WINGARD: I mean, I think maybe I'm like half deaf because I really like things being super loud. We're on the exact same page. The reason I like this question is because it leads to so many people debating it, because everyone likes a different spot. I know people that like to sit in the front row, and I'm like, “You're insane.” ARJONA: That's crazy. Unless the screen is really small and you're in a smaller theater, in which case, yeah, front row can work. WINGARD: Yeah, that's why New Bev is good for that. I'm curious, what was it about Adria's work that made you say, “Oh, she can absolutely kill a bunch of super soldiers?” WINGARD: Well, it's interesting because I can't say that when I was looking at Adria’s movies that I was like, “Oh, she's played a character that tells me she can do this.” It was more from watching her films that I was like, “Okay, she's a great actor,” obviously. When I met her, it was like, “Oh, she's got this kind of aspect of her that I actually haven't seen,” and that to me was exciting. I just felt like when I met her that I just believed that she could embody the actual toughness and the messiness of the character. ARJONA: I’m a messy girl. [Laughs] It was my truck. It was when you saw me driving my truck, you're like, “You got this.” Adria Arjona Was Covered in Blood While Filming This Brutal Chainsaw Scene They also discuss finding the perfect actress for Daisy. Image via A24 There is a shot in this where you are cutting someone below the knee with a chainsaw and blood is just splattering up on you. What is it like getting ready for a shot like that where you know you're going to get doused, and you know it could get in your eyes? What are you mentally doing to get ready for that shot? ARJONA: You just want to do the shot. You're just like, “Adam, let's go!” He's like, “Alright, this is going to happen. You’re stabbing it this way.” I'm like, “Okay, good.” He's like, “You ready?” I'm like, “I'm ready.” And it was a hose, pretty much. They're just hosing and splattering blood all over my face. It got in my eye, it got in my nose, it got in my mouth. It got everywhere. It got in my ears. I mean, I was covered in blood. Also, it was like minus I-don't-know-what degrees outside. It was freezing cold. And he called cut, and I was like, “Oh my God, should we do it again? Please, let's do it again.” He's like, “Nope, nope. We got it.” So that was just one take. So at least he spared me. That's crazy. I did notice how cold the shoot was, though, when I could see breath, and I was like, “Oh, this is not fun.” ARJONA: Oh no, no, no. It was cold. WINGARD: Windy and cold. Because we built that trailer park out in the middle of nowhere, and so it turns out doing that creates the opening to your essentially just being like a wind tunnel out there in Albuquerque, and it was just so piercingly cold. There's actually a scene, I think it was one of the coldest nights, with one of the trailer park residents, who's the guy who's pinning up all of his clothes on a clothesline. There's a scene where he's coming out of his trailer, and he's like, “God damn, it's fucking cold out here.” He was just saying that. That was not scripted. [Laughs] That was just riffing. Yeah, that's how it felt, you know? ARJONA: It got in your bones, for sure. I have to ask you about working with the little girl in this. What did you tell her about what was happening in the movie? Because I don't know how old that girl was, but she's not old. She's a young kid. ARJONA: She's smaller. She’s small. WINGARD: Whenever you're hiring kid actors, it's like you're looking for something that's pure production value, which is the realism and the weird things that kids say and do and their mannerisms and stuff. So, when you're casting that type of thing, you have to see it in the audition. Like adult actors, a lot of times you don't need to see the full performance. You can kind of tell. If you can get it to a certain place and they can kind of embody the vibe, you know that the performance is going to get there on the day. But with kids, you have to see it 100%. For some reason, that's just the way it works, because if it's not there in the audition, it's never going to be there. And her auditions were just amazing. A lot of times, kids are just more prepared even than the adults. They're so focused and everything, and she definitely had that. ARJONA: Oh yeah. She's way more mature than I am. It's literally the same dynamic between Celeste and her daughter. She's very put together, very proper, and then I'm just a messy girl. Adam Wingard Wrote This '80s-Inspired Role Specifically for Michael Biehn "I literally had a Michael Biehn fan club." Image via A24 You have Michael Biehn and Reginald VelJohnson. When you have those two in the movie, fans like me are like, “Oh yes,” you know what I mean? Talk a little bit about working with them and getting to geek out with them because they're iconic genre people. ARJONA: They're so iconic. I didn't ask Reggie any questions. When you're dealing with someone at that level, you're just like, “Can we be friends?” We geek out about other stuff, and he gives the best hugs in the world. He knew that towards the end of the movie, I was getting tired and more cold, and there was more blood, so every morning he’d be like, “Hug?” And I'm like, “Yes, please. Yes sir, please give me a hug.” We had amazing conversations, but I could never touch on his work. WINGARD: We designed those characters around, like, we knew we wanted iconic kind of ‘80s actors to embody that because we knew that that was sort of the vibe of the film. We wanted characters who literally reflected that, so those parts are very much written for those guys. For me, back in sixth grade, I literally had a Michael Biehn fan club. I don't know how many people say that, but I was obsessed with Hicks and Kyle Reese. So, we wrote this character for him, and it's cool because now I'm really good friends with Michael — and Reggie, but me and Michael, we go and have lunch dates all the time, and we end up spending, like, four hours just hanging out. He's got so many great stories. So now he's just like my buddy. He's not like this action figure anymore, and that's a really neat thing when you meet some of your heroes, and they turn out to be even cooler than you think. Both those guys are. True or false: This movie was entirely made for you to become friends with Michael Biehn? WINGARD: Yes. [Laughs] That's at least half true. Maybe not the whole reason we did it, but definitely the reason we wrote that character. ARJONA: You answered that way too quickly. Onslaught opens in theaters and IMAX on September 4. Release Date September 4, 2026 Runtime 92 Minutes Director Adam Wingard Writers Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard Producers Aaron Ryder, Adam Wingard, Alexander Black, Andrew Swett, Jeremy Platt, Simon Barrett