*Drew Starkey and Dan Stevens stepped into “Onslaught” knowing director Adam Wingard wasn’t looking for actors who simply showed up, hit their marks and went home. He wanted them to play — and sometimes get weird.
Opening in theaters Friday, Sept. 4, Wingard’s action-horror film stars Adria Arjona as Celeste, an Army sniper and mother forced to protect her young daughter after genetically engineered super soldiers escape into the desert. Stevens and Starkey are part of an ensemble that also includes Rebecca Hall, Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson and Michael Biehn. A24
Speaking with EURweb’s Kenny Pettis Jr. ahead of the release, Stevens and Starkey said Wingard’s willingness to let actors experiment helped make the film’s bloody, unpredictable world their own.
Wingard Gives His Actors Room to Get Weird
Stevens already knew what he was walking into. He previously worked with Wingard on “The Guest” and later on “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” and said that history created a level of trust that encouraged him to take chances.
“With Adam, you just know you’re in good hands,” Stevens told EURweb.
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Knowing the finished movie will “look great” and “sound great,” Stevens said, creates an environment that is “very conducive to wanting to do your best work and bring something.”
Sometimes, that means trying to make Wingard laugh.
Stevens said he’ll occasionally attempt “something weird and strange,” even when a scene isn’t necessarily comedic. If Wingard responds to it, that’s usually encouragement to keep exploring.
For Starkey, who plays a government agent dispatched after the escaped super soldiers, Wingard offered a similar sense of freedom.
“I think he just gives you a real kind of ownership over a character,” Starkey said. “He throws a lot of really great ideas to you, but really, ultimately, they’re yours to run with.”
Can an Original Movie Still Break Through?
That freedom became part of a larger conversation with EURweb about what it means to make an original movie at a time when Hollywood remains heavily invested in sequels, franchises and established intellectual property.
Wingard himself knows both worlds. After directing franchise projects including “Godzilla vs. Kong” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” he returned to original action-horror with “Onslaught.”
Stevens hopes audiences still have an appetite for movies that aren’t built around familiar brands.
“I hope so,” he said when asked whether original films can still break through. “I mean, I think that’s what it’s all about.”
He noted that the industry can still be surprised when an original idea manages to “catch fire.”
“It is exciting to get to enter a new world,” Stevens said.
There’s a wrinkle to the “original” label: Wingard has described “Onslaught” as existing in the same broader world as his earlier films “The Guest” and “You’re Next.” But it isn’t a conventional sequel, remake or adaptation, and Stevens emphasized that it remains its own story.
“It’s an original story, it’s an auteur director,” Stevens said. “And I think, you know, I’m always excited to champion that in whatever format.”
Taking That Spirit Beyond ‘Onslaught’
The conversation ended on a lighter note when Stevens and Starkey were asked where they might drop their “Onslaught” characters into another 2026 movie.
Stevens quickly picked “The Odyssey,” imagining his character in Christopher Nolan’s epic. The playful exchange underscored what both actors had spent much of the conversation discussing: the fun of entering a filmmaker’s world and discovering how far a character can be pushed.
For “Onslaught,” that meant trusting Wingard enough to take risks — whether the result was strange, funny or completely unexpected.
And for Stevens, there’s something worth defending beyond this particular movie: giving filmmakers enough freedom to create worlds audiences haven’t already visited a dozen times.
“Onslaught” opens in theaters Sept. 4.
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