The Big Picture

Jessica Alba stars as an action heroine in Trigger Warning, marking her return to the big screen after a hiatus in leading roles.
Directed by Mouly Surya, the film follows Alba’s character seeking vengeance against a violent gang in her New Mexico hometown.
Alba trained extensively in knife fighting for her role, opting for a more intimate and character-driven approach to her action scenes.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Jessica Alba lead a movie. It’s not like she hasn’t kept busy. She’s the co-founder of The Honest Company, she co-hosted a reality show with Lizzy Mathis, and she co-starred opposite Gabrielle Union in the Bad Boys spin-off television series L.A.’s Finest. However, her new movie Trigger Warning, which hits Netflix today, marks the first time she’s starred in a movie in quite some time. Her last movie, Killers Anonymous, was released back in 2019, but her role in the crime thriller was more of a supporting turn. Alba used to dominate the screen with her roles in Tim Story’s Fantastic Four movies, the Sin City films, and Machete.

Her comeback role in Trigger Warning finally allows her to be the leading action heroine in her own movie. Directed by Mouly Surya in her English-language debut, the movie centers around special forces commando Parker, who returns to her New Mexico home after receiving news of her father’s sudden passing. As she readjusts herself to civilian life and acquires ownership of her late father’s bar, she learns that her hometown has become overrun by a violent gang, who seem to have some strong connections with the local seedy political Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall). Seeking vengeance for her father’s passing, Parker wages a one-woman war against the violent gang, taking them out one by one.

Collider was lucky enough to sit down and talk with both Alba and Surya about making Trigger Warning, their action movie idols, and why Alba’s character uses a knife to fight instead of a gun.

Trigger Warning (2024) After taking over a small-town bar from her late grandfather, a former soldier discovers a web of illegal activities connected to the establishment. Her efforts to clean up lead her into a dangerous confrontation with powerful enemies, pushing her to leverage her military training in a fight for justice.Release Date June 21, 2024 Director Mouly Surya Runtime 86 Minutes Writers John Brancato , Josh Olson , Halley Wegryn Gross Expand

COLLIDER: Jessica, you haven’t been in a movie since 2019, and I’m wondering, what was it about Trigger Warning that made you want to jump back into this?

JESSICA ALBA: I’ve always wanted to do an action movie, and I always wanted to do a gritty, grounded kind of throwback action movie. It just took some time for us to get the script where we needed to get it and find the most perfect director, and for everything to kind of fall into place. It was in my mind that this was something I wanted to do for a really long time, but all the pieces coming together just took a hot minute.

The Stunt Team Behind ‘John Wick’ Worked on ‘Trigger Warning’

For both of you, I read some of the John Wick team helped with the stunts, and I’m curious if they showed you anything on set that you hope to carry over into future projects that you make.

ALBA: They’re just masters at efficient shooting and choreography. I think that is what they’re really good at. We wanted to obviously not do a complete rip-off, and we wanted to do something that we could really own, and so bringing in that knife fighting and the knife skills and the sword skills, that was something we were really excited about incorporating in this movie.

MOULY SURYA: They’re a great team. I did learn a lot from them, and it’s something that I will definitely apply to the rest of my filmmaking career. But in a way, as well, I think there’s a specificity in this film that they really excel at with the close combat and the knife fighting, the machete fighting. In a way, it’s not your standard action movie. It’s an action movie, but it has that specificity. I think the stunt team excels in that, and it’s wonderful.

ALBA: Yeah, that character-driven action.

Jessica Alba and Mouly Surya Reveal Their Action Movie Idols

Do either of you have an action movie idol, somebody that you always loved their action movies, or you grew up watching their movies and that made you wanna do movies like this?

ALBA: Gosh, I always loved Harrison Ford. I also loved Beverly Hills Cop and the Lethal Weapon movies, the Die Hard movies. I kind of loved all of that stuff. I just wished it was a chick sometimes that was the lead instead of us always having to get saved. [Laughs]

SURYA: I was raised with martial arts movies, Chinese martial arts movies, so I’m into Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi, also Jackie Chan.

ALBA: Yeah, Jackie Chan is massive.

I know this was your first movie filmed in America. What was the thing that surprised you the most about filming in the U.S. versus filming overseas?

SURYA: I think directing is basically the same everywhere else because, basically, you’re sitting behind a monitor and telling people what to do, right? [Laughs] It’s like building a house. You have a vision, you dream stuff, and then it happens in front of you. But I think the difference that I’m surprised the most by is the level of the skill of the craftsmanship that people have here, like the stunt team, Jessica, the actors — they’re all amazing — and the abundance of resources. We’re not a huge budget or anything, but I feel that coming from Indonesia, I shot my third film with a nine-inch monitor in the middle of nowhere, so it’s totally different. But I think what shocked me the most was the culture shock, the different culture, the learning to work amongst [everyone]. As an Indonesian, I’ve always thought of myself as outspoken but turns out I’m not outspoken enough in America. [Laughs]

ALBA: [Laughs] That’s amazing.

Jessica Alba Advocated for Her Character to Fight With a Knife
Image via Netflix

Jessica, did you do a lot of knife training beforehand?

ALBA: Yeah, I did a couple of months of training, and I did do knife training.

I noticed your character uses the knife a lot more than the gun. I thought that was really interesting.

ALBA: That was a choice. 100%. Both of us did. We feel like this genre is dominated these days by a lot of gun killing and gun fights and all of that. It kind of goes with this genre in a lot of ways, and John Wick wins that narrative, and so we were like, “What is right for us? What would feel satisfying and cool to watch also?” Also, if Parker does need to take out an opponent, these are passionate kills, these are not nameless and faceless. These are people who have wronged her and who are trying to kill her, and what does that look like, and that dynamic? So we were inventive and open to her taking her opponents out in various ways, but we tried not to use a gun as much and tried to use other things.

SURYA: I think killing someone with a knife or fighting someone with a knife is a more intimate way of fighting someone. It’s not like a gun where you can shoot someone from far away, so in a way, I think that brings so much character to the character and the movie and to the choreography.

Trigger Warning is now available to stream on Netflix.

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