Oscar winner Viola Davis plays a U.S. president targeted by armed mercenaries during a G20 Summit. Credit: Amazon Prime Video

Mexican filmmaker Patricia Riggen (The 33) is putting Hollywood on notice. Latina directors are capable of making action movies and should be given more opportunities to do so.

Riggen takes her first shot at the genre with G20, which stars Oscar winner Viola Davis (Fences). In the film, Davis plays U.S. President Danielle Sutton, who is targeted by armed mercenaries during a trip to the G20 Summit in Cape Town, South Africa. During the ordeal, she must do everything in her power to protect her family and defend her country.

During a recent interview with the Current, Riggen, 54, discussed her experience directing her first action movie and how she hopes to pave the way for Latina directors in the future. She also talked about her interest in directing high-action franchise films.

I know you’ve had experience directing action sequences on TV series like Jack Ryan, but what was it like shooting your first action movie?

It was awesome. It’s something I feel natural doing. I’ve never thrown a punch in my life … [but] I guess we’ve seen a lot of movies as Latinos. We love action movies. Maybe I had a past life where I was a warrior. Movies are always challenging. You never have enough time [or] enough money. In this case, I wanted to really fight and protect the action. Budgets tend to shrink once we are on set. They tend to not want to spend money. I felt it was very important as a Latina to have really good action, so that there was no question that we can do it.

Did that put added pressure on you to prove that, so either yourself or the next Latina in line could get another chance?

The pressure is always on. I’ve always known as a woman that I need to overperform, so that the ones that are coming behind me have doors open. I am happy that there’s so many women that are coming into movies now. Hopefully, there will be women of color accessing more and more jobs. There’s still very few action [movie] female directors in the world. I just kind of slipped into a tiny group of three or four.

Since you usually make more intimate films like Under the Same Moon and Girl in Progress, did G20 feel like a bigger production in general?

I have to say that every movie, if it’s good, it’s intimate. Even if you have a very large set with a lot of people or a lot of tools, at the end of the day, the communication happens between the actor and the audience and between the actors. In that sense, it was very important that we created a story and characters that people care about. For instance, we added a very strong storyline that gave the movie a lot of heart. That’s where I concentrate, so that I don’t lose myself in the big action and feel nervous or tense about handling such a big set. It was a very large set with very big things like the Presidential convoy … and the helicopter.

What did Viola Davis bring to a role like this? She’s played very strong women in other films, too.

I think Viola came in very fit already. She concentrated more in acquiring weapons training, so that having a backstory as a soldier would come naturally. Besides being a real, true action hero, which she proves herself to be in this movie, she also is bringing the Viola Davis touch, which means getting into the heart of the character. So, it’s a very cool combination of the two things.

Is there anything that you wanted to do on the set that you couldn’t accomplish because of budget limitations?

No, I got it all. I’m very bold, and I figured it out. I feel that as a Mexican woman, we always have to find a way to get things done, even if we did not have millions. We figured it all out and were very smart on how to organize and how not to waste any time or money. We got everything in, so we could have all the action scenes and make an A-plus action movie.

Do you know how to throw a punch now?

And how to use the knife and how to use guns. I went to shoot guns before I started the movie, so that I would really know how a gun recoils and how it feels. I like to try to do everything myself beforehand, so that I have a way of measuring its effectiveness. I do a lot of research. I worked very closely with my military advisors, technical advisors, CIA guys and my Navy SEAL guys.

Now that you have an action movie under your belt, if Marvel came to you, would you take the opportunity to make a tentpole project like that? Or another Mission Impossible or James Bond movie, perhaps?

Are you kidding me? That would be amazing. I would love that. I would love to shoot a big, high-action movie. It’s something that we normally don’t get [as] women. If you are a Latina or a woman of color, [it’s] even harder to access. Hopefully, more and more [of us] will be thrown the big movies.

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This article appears in Apr 2-15, 2025.