The stars of Onslaught are off and running.
Just ask Adria Arjona and Dan Stevens, who are both joining iconic franchises after starring in their fiercely stripped down ‘80s action throwback.
For Arjona, it’s an introduction to the DC Universe as Maxima in James Gunn’s Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow.
“It always feels nice to walk onto a set and see familiar faces,” Arjona explained in her exclusive interview with SYFY Wire. “I think there’s nothing scarier than trying to decipher the energy of a set. ‘Oh, what’s the vibe?’”
Arjona “felt very much at home” alongside Gunn 10 years after their first collaboration with the The Belko Experiment, a horror-action indie akin to Onslaught penned and produced by the now-DC Comics co-chair.
Their careers are now in very different places a decade later, to put it mildly. “It was pretty cool to look at him,” she noted, “and be like, ‘You’re my director now.’”
Meanwhile, Stevens is busy with resurrecting RoboCop, a franchise very much among the ‘80s shoot-em-ups that director Adam Wingard looked to for Onslaught.
“[Wingard] found out like everybody else and texted me, ‘Did I wake up in an alternate reality where you are RoboCop?’” he recalled to SYFY Wire. “I said, ‘I’m afraid you did.’”
As for what Stevens can reveal about the upcoming TV series from Prime Video?
“Very little at this stage,” Stevens admitted, but noted, “I’m extremely excited to be bringing this back for fans.”
Playing Detroit’s most famous law enforcement officer, who was recently honored by the city with his own statue, and wearing contrived mechanical suits was infamously a detriment on set for both Peter Weller and Joel Kinnanman.
But Stevens is suiting up nevertheless. “We’re into fittings already,” he added. “It’s really exciting.”
As deranged super soldiers descend upon the desert trailer park occupied by Arjona’s PTSD-stricken Army sniper in Onslaught, they’re pursued by government agency “janitor” Cyrus, played by Drew Starkey—who got some audio homework from Wingard ahead of filming.
“He told me to go listen to a bunch of house music. I was like great, so I listened to a bunch of Aphex Twin,” said the Outer Banks alum. “[Wingard’s] good at building the world for you, then you interpret it how you want.”
Stevens had his own checklist after signing on, like differentiating his Nazi scientist Hans Kammler’s German accent from the one he adopted for 2024’s Cuckoo.
“We wanted to point him in a very different direction. I think Alan Rickman in Die Hardwas a vocal touchstone,” he shared. “That kind of at-the-back-of-the-throat, very chewy and drippy and kind of weird. That was a great compass.”
Lucky for Arjona, onscreen daughter Blake Kennedy—in her first movie role—made portraying their onscreen dynamic easy.
“I just felt incredibly protective over her, so half of my journey was there already,” the Hitman star explained. “I just had to make sure she was safe.”
By the way, if the song Eric Wareheim is blasting in his car sounds familiar—you might just be an ’80s kid (and/or a Podcast: The Ride listener).
Remember McGruff the Crime Dog’s Smart Kids album packed with songs like “I’m Glad I’m Me” that promoted staying off drugs and avoiding other precarious activities? Well, Wingard’s music consultant Anna Cook is here to spread the bark.
“She has these crazy songs she’s always finding. When we were location scouting…we were just constantly listening to that McGruff the Crime Dog song, because we’re like, ‘This rips!'” Wingard recalled. “At a certain point, we’re like, ‘Wait a minute. What if Eric Wareheim was listening to this track?’ It’s like, ‘Is this is this too ridiculous? Can we do this?’ We just kind of committed to it.”
Onslaught is in theaters now.
