Adria Arjona’s first appearance in Hit Man is a classic femme fatale entrance: A mysterious woman walks through the door of a café and recruits our hero Gary (Glen Powell) to do a dirty job for her. Of course, in this case, things are a little more complicated. The job is a murder, but the hero isn’t a killer; he’s a psychology professor running undercover sting operations for the New Orleans Police Department. And he’s going to try to convince her to change her mind. 

Look a little closer at Arjona’s Madison, however, and you’ll see that there’s more than initially meets the eye. “What we were asking Adria to do is just be a real person,” director Richard Linklater told Netflix. “She isn’t the Black Widow. She’s just really complex like all of us. We meet her at her darkest moment. But does that define a person? I don’t think so.”

If Gary is giving a performance as grizzled contract killer Ron for Madison’s benefit, Madison is returning the favor. “Similar to what Glen creates with all these [hit man] characters, Madison is also trying to fulfill Ron’s fantasy of a femme fatale,” Arjona tells Tudum. So really, the whole story is just a bit of very intense role-play. 

We caught up with Arjona to chat about Madison’s arc, her favorite Linklater films, and more.  

Brian Roedel/Netflix

Madison is introduced as a sort of femme fatale, but the film goes on to subvert that trope. How did you play that?

I’ve been hearing femme fatale a lot, but I think Madison is very much acting like the femme fatale, and you can see that at the beginning of the movie where she’s a little more timid. You can tell she’s coming from trauma, then becomes this femme fatale, and then kind of molds these two characters together and finds the best version of herself towards the end.

To me, just playing a straight femme fatale felt a little bit more on the boring side. I mean, it’s always fun, but I wanted something else. I wanted her to be putting on this act and even sometimes feeling a little bit uncomfortable with it. She has a motive and navigating through that motive and her tactics and finding out how to commit this murder. I think I just kind of played a version of myself really trying to be a femme fatale. I personally feel kind of shy and uncomfortable over those things at times. So, I think that element helped and it felt grounded in my own truth in a way.

Brian Roedel/Netflix

You’re in the position of performing opposite Glen Powell, the person who created the character with Rick. How did you take ownership of Madison?

When I first read [the script], they were kind and generous enough to be like, “Look, she’s almost like an outline in a way. We want to really develop Madison.” And I was like, “Oh, are you guys going to get another writer?” They’re like, “No, you’re going to be the one to develop it.”

And that to me was the biggest gift because I never get that position. I’ve never considered myself to be a writer or I’ve never considered myself capable of doing this development from scratch, because I’ve never been given the opportunity for it. They gave me a seat at the table. They really asked me questions; my opinion and my female perspective on this was really important to them. They were very aware that there were two men and they were like, “We want you to bring all that you want and can to this character.”

So, that’s what we did. It was in conversation and just riffing ideas between the three of us and coming up with different little scenarios. The flight attendant scene, for example, is like, “Oh wait, a man like Ron, who’s a bad boy, might like lingerie or might like cosplay or whatever it might be, and maybe she’s thinking that, so let’s add that to it.” That wasn’t in the original script.

Brian Roedel/Netflix

Did you talk about Madison’s backstory and her previous relationship?

Rick is one of my favorite directors of all time — I respect him and I adore him. I came into the rehearsal so well prepared. I had a whole thing of her backstory and we sort of sat down in rehearsals and he was like, “I don’t really know where she’s coming from.” I just vomited all this information that I had been imagining in my brain, and then through what I had pieced together and his ideas, we came up with our own little backstory. That’s so private and so intimate for an actor. To be able to share that process with your director and make really specific decisions beforehand was really helpful.

What was filming the big entrapment scene at the end like? You’ve called it a make-up scene.

It was a lot of fun. We would talk about it every day. We would find new lines, we would remove lines. We would find different ways of [handling it], whether it was note cards, a phone, does he have an earpiece? So, by the time that we filmed it, Glen and I were so locked in [with] what we wanted the scene to be or become that the second we heard “Action!” for the first time — we’d never ran it full on. 

The first time we were actually able to perform it was on the day, and all these little surprises started coming out, like Glen’s hands gesturing and my kind of freaking out. That was all thanks to the freedom and the work that we had put into that scene. That was really rewarding. Everyone’s like, “Oh, did it take you guys a day or two days to film that?” That didn’t even take us half a day.

Brian Rondel/Netflix

Is it challenging to be in a position where obviously Rick is directing the movie, but Glen is sort of directing you in that scene? Does that get complicated?

Not at all. Rick is my director, 100%. Because we were all three always together, Rick had an idea of how we were going to do it. 

There were layers to that performance. [There’s] the voice element of it. Then the other one was the physical element of it. And the third one was acting while trying to act as well. So, just keeping it straight with Glen was really important. Sometimes if my voice would go a little bit over, then that was Rick’s job to make sure to come in and be like, “Hey, you sounded a little bit more excited” or, “You gave yourself up voice-wise.” 

You’ve talked a lot about how excited you were to work with Rick. Did he live up to your expectations?

More. I only want to work with Rick. What are we doing next? I always aspired to be an actress from one of Rick’s movies. And to be in it and to get to see his process and understand his process and learn from it was a real gift. I think it’s made me a better actress and has made me also understand film as well. Because you make a movie with Rick, you’re in the filming process with him. You hear him talk about shots or his ideas or how he sees the movie.

Do you have a favorite Linklater movie? Or a few?

The Before trilogy, School of Rock, Boyhood. The fact that he has so much range as a director, he’s his own thing. Even between the ones that I just said, how can you even pick? And there’s so much more.

There’s Hit Man.

There’s Hit Man, there’s Everybody Wants Some!! There’s Bernie. I mean, it’s too much.

Did you first see Glen in a Linklater movie? In Everybody Wants Some!!?

I did, yeah. And then I saw him in Top Gun, of course. There’s something about Glen that’s really special. You see him in any movie and you’re like, “Oh, this guy is going to be this.” You watch Top Gun and you’re like, “Oh, this guy is going to be the asshole in Hollywood.” And then you watch Hit Man and you’re like, “I can’t tell.” I think that’s Glen’s magic. You’ll never be able to tell what he’s going to do next. That’s how talented he is, both as a writer and as an actor. He’s pretty unpredictable. 

Brian Rondel/Netflix

What do you think creates on-screen chemistry? 

Either you have it or you don’t. I think it’s very specific to any individual, but for me it’s trust. When you’re doing these scenes, you want to have a scene partner that has your back and you have theirs. And from day one, I was like, “I trust Glen.” So that came really quick. But I mean, I think Glen can have chemistry with a tree.

Do you think you could have chemistry with a tree?

I mean, I am definitely a people person. I love people. I could talk to a wall for sure, but I don’t know. Maybe it was just a really good match and Rick saw something before we did. That’s very much on Rick and Rick’s eye. But I can tell you from my perspective, I think trust is pretty important. [Glen]’s not that hard to look at either, so that helps.

Hit Man is streaming on Netflix now.

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