Minor spoilers ahead.
In mainstream comedies these days, characters rarely come as intriguing, cool and intricately realized as Madison Masters, one half of Hit Man’s smitten lovebirds breaking free from an existential rut. But the Puerto Rican-Guatemalan actress Adria Arjona, who plays Madison with alluring verve and a disarming sense of mystique, didn’t say yes to Hit Man only because of Madison’s enthralling qualities. In fact, she hadn’t even read the script yet when she knew for sure she wanted in. “When you know that Richard Linklater is directing any movie, you want to do it. I was like, ‘Oh man. I want to be a part of this and work with Rick, and I hope this is the one.’”
Well, it turned out Hit Man (now streaming on Netflix) was the one, the hilarious and brilliantly winsome crowd-pleaser through which Arjona realized her dream and ambition of working with Linklater. Loosely based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth and co-written by Texas natives Linklater and Glen Powell, Hit Man follows the straight-laced college professor Gary Johnson (Powell), a geeky cat person who, after a series of incidents, moonlights on the side as the New Orleans Police Department’s fake hit man. You know, the guy who poses to be a contract killer to catch those willing to employ his services red-handed. It’s all smooth sailing for Gary until Madison shows up to hire him for the murder of her controlling husband. And before we know it, Gary’s hitman persona Ron—a confident heartthrob and a dog person—and Madison fall in love. What ensues is a most brilliant mash-up of screwballs, rom-coms and noirs of yore, made all the more delicious through Arjona and Powell’s steamy on-screen chemistry.
“I had to read the script a couple times to make up my mind on how to track Madison,” Arjona says. And that was part of the fun and challenge for her, as she had the rarest of opportunities in Hit Man: actually having her own say in her character’s journey. “When I first got onto this project, Madison was like this skeleton. Rick really wanted me to help him figure out who this woman is. And that was really exciting, to be able to work with one of your favorite filmmakers in the creation of the character that you’re gonna play. This never happens.” Ultimately, Arjona felt lucky to be portraying her, as Madison contained multitudes and was never supposed to be just one thing. “She’s kind of playing on many different levels and it was so much fun.”
Yes, Powell is very much a movie star and an irresistible chameleon in Hit Man through the many personality skins he wears and sheds throughout the film. But Linklater’s latest is just as palpable a star-making vehicle for Arjona, whose Madison often wows, charms, shocks and back again, often in the same scene.
Here’s our conversation with Arjona on becoming Madison, working with Linklater and Powell, and her future big-screen ambitions.
This film is about identity in a lot of ways—the idea of whether we could become a better version of ourselves. Both Ron and Madison are trying on identities.
It’s funny because I think Glen’s transformations are so physical and he kind of shapes into these characters. But Madison does it in a way that I think we do in normal life a little bit. She’s trying to reinvent herself, you know? When we first meet her, she’s in such a dark place and she just wants to be another version of herself. And she kind of projects that onto Ron. She’s like, “What would Ron’s perfect woman be like?” And she starts acting like a version of herself that Ron would like better. That’s why every time someone’s like, “Oh, Madison is a femme fatale,” I’m like, “No, not really.” Because she’s her own idea of a femme fatale. She’s watched so many movies and this is her version.
I found that so much fun to play with. She goes through many different iterations of herself. She goes from this traumatic, weak place to this woman that is just so open and all she wants to do is learn and explore and have adventures. She comes from a controlling background and then becomes who we meet at the end—it’s Madison playing house. And these two characters’ love language is roleplay. So I think they’ll be like this forever.
How did you and Glen Powell build your amazing on-screen chemistry and dynamic? It’s really rare these days to see this much almost tangible alchemy between romantic leads.
It’s one of those things that just happened. The first time that I met him, I just knew right off the bat that I could trust him. And we had a lot of things in common. We both come from a big family. We love our family, and that was the first connection that we both had with each other. Outside of that, I think it’s just really trust. Rick always says either there’s chemistry or there isn’t. I think you can work on it. But in this case, it just happened. We got really lucky with that.
And in the rehearsal process, when you spend two and a half weeks with somebody—breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you’re pitching ideas for the script and sharing anecdotes of your own personal life—you get to know someone pretty quickly. We all had the same goal and that bonded us. We were just in sync on what we wanted to achieve for this dynamic between the characters.
Many films avoid intimacy scenes and sexuality, but Hit Man is thankfully a refreshing exception. How did you approach those intimate scenes? And did you use an intimacy coordinator?
Oh yeah, we had an intimacy coordinator. But again, I was in the writers’ room in the process of writing these sex scenes. And because roleplay is their love language, that was a really important way for us to showcase just how these people are falling in love and are a little twisted in their head. In their roleplaying mind, they’re using sensuality that neither of them thought that they had to their own advantage. I don’t think Madison is the most va-va-voom lady of all time, but she is for Ron. And you can see the other side of that in Gary. So we really wanted to showcase who these people are becoming for each other.
It’s funny and it’s ridiculous. Like with the flight attendant roleplay scene, it’s supposed to be ridiculous because this is Madison’s idea of what Ron might like. When talking about it in the writers’ room, you forget that you’re the one that has to do it as well. So after we discussed all these scenes, Glen and I looked at each, and we were like, “Oh man, now we have to actually do them.” But it’s so special when you have ownership over those scenes. What Rick and Glen gifted me is that they allowed me to be part of the process in the creation of these scenes. So I had ownership of what was happening, how it was shot. And Rick did that. No other director that I’ve ever worked with, female or male, has ever given me the say on, “This is how it should be.” And it’s important to the story and it’s fun. You are seeing these two people be crazy in love and having a good time. I knew that Glen had my back. I had Glen’s back. It couldn’t have been more respectful.
That’s amazing. So how early did you come on board then, to figure everything out?
Rick’s process is really collaborative. I got to New Orleans about two and a half weeks before we started filming, and before that, we were on Zoom. Rick and Glen very much wrote the script, but we discovered Madison’s dynamic in a lot of scenes in rehearsal, and then the three of us wrote ideas of scenes together. And that happened for two and a half weeks. We didn’t stop. We would wake up, open the script and start writing and rewriting and reshaping and changing a line and changing another line for two and a half weeks until we locked down Madison and Ron’s dynamic. And once we had that, we rehearsed it, and then we shot it.
Speaking of Madison’s identity, her wardrobe is such a big part of her evolution, too. You can see her journey and growing confidence in her style.
Costume designer Juliana [Hoffpauir] is absolutely amazing—she’s so talented. And because I was in the development of the character, and the script was changing so much as we were also doing costume fittings, I knew a little ahead of time what this character was shaping to become. She obviously designed it, and she did everything. And we kind of put our brains together and I was like, “I wanna go sexier with that.” But I was a little afraid and like, “I don’t know if I can do it.” And she said, “You can do it. It looks good. Just trust me.” But I was kind of the shy girl in me, having a panic attack every time I put on the little red dress. But she just gave me the confidence with clothes. And you know, I bought and ordered a lot of stuff. I saw the green boots and I was like, “We need to get them.” I just saw her as a boot girl. So we bought all sorts of boots. I bought some, she bought some. And then we compiled what we had, molding and creating her.
A certain scene in the film drew spontaneous applause from the audience both times I watched it in a crowd, at New York Film Festival and Sundance. I guess we can call it “the cell phone scene.” Ron and Madison play out this elaborate scheme with Ron giving directions to Madison on his phone screen while the police is listening outside. It’s hilarious and absolutely brilliant.
Oh man. We spoke so much about that scene—it went through so many iterations for it to be perfect. First of all, we had to make sure that the scene before it worked, in order for the phone scene to work. And then the ending had to work too—those three come in a trio. And I have names for them. The first one is the breakup, when the truth comes out of us both. And it’s a big breakup scene. And then the phone scene is almost like the makeup sex. They are getting back together and I think that’s why people celebrate so much. And then the third one is the commitment—it’s sort of the proposal of marriage. We say “’til death do us part” with that scene.
So in order for the middle one to work, the breakup scene needs to work. So we spoke about it so much and it finally landed. When we were talking about it, we knew exactly what we had to do, what we wanted this scene to be, but we never did it fully until the day of filming. Because we were a low budget production, we didn’t shoot it for many hours. We didn’t have many takes. It’s such a big scene in the movie and you would think we shot it a million times and that’s actually not the case. So we got there and all of a sudden magic started happening. The idea of the voice acting, plus the flirting, plus these two people coming together, it all started happening organically. I just remember me and Glen going, “I wanna go again. Let’s do it again.” Not because we thought we hadn’t done a good job, but because we were just having so much fun.
You have such a versatile resume thus far. From indies, the lovely rom-com The Father of the Bride remake, to bigger budget escapades across movies and television. What’s the next thing you would love to do in your career?
It’s really hard to say without seeing it in front of me. I do want to do more comedies and romantic comedies and explore that area like in Hit Man. I haven’t danced in that area a lot, and it’s something that I wanna keep doing because it’s fun. And those are the kind of movies that I wanna watch. But then if I read a script and it’s quirky and dark, I might be like, “Oh, I wanna do that.” I think it always depends. I’m really intentional and I follow my intuition. When [the right project] comes in front of me, I know that’s what I want to do next. I don’t like to plan to ahead, and when you’re in the arts, you can’t plan too far ahead. I could say right now, “All I wanna do is comedy.” But [then I] would not be making good ones, you know? I like to stay as open as I can for the opportunities that are coming my way. I don’t wanna get in my own way.
And it sounded from this interview that you loved being involved in finessing your character. Is writing or perhaps directing an area you would want to explore?
That is an absolute dream of mine, to be able to direct. I will say Rick and Glen gave me a lot of confidence in feeling like I could be a part of that. But, you know, they very much wrote the structure and the bones of this movie. I came in the creation of Madison. And that’s where I feel comfortable: in the creation of my own characters. I wish I could do that in more projects. I think I’m more of a, “I have an idea, this is what I want,” person. And then I hire a talented writer or collaborate with a talented writer and develop it from there. But directing? Definitely. I would love to, but I’m not ready at all. I’m nowhere near ready. I think I’ll direct my first movie in my fifties or something. I have a lot to learn and I’m really excited.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.