Why Alexa PenaVega’s Next Movie Role Feels Personal

Published: June 19, 2026

By Kayla DeKraker

For Alexa PenaVega, latest role feels personal.

The SPY KIDS actress stars in HOME, a redemptive movie by director Sean McNamara. It follows a “charismatic con man [who] is sentenced to community service where an unexpected love story becomes a tale of courage as he risks everything to save an immigrant child to give the young boy the home he never had.”

Alongside PenaVega, who plays Maria, “a widow raising a house full of kids who have nowhere else to go,” the cast includes Mike Vogel, Dennis Haysbert and Devon Franklin.

“I have a big heart for children,” PenaVega said of her passion for the project. “I love children. I’m the oldest of seven kids, so we have a big family, and I have four myself. We’re at a time where trafficking is just…I feel like at an all-time high, and people are becoming so much more aware of it.”

The actress continued, “So, the timing of this film is hopefully really important and really, really impactful for people. We all have an opportunity to jump in and do something in some way or another, whether you’re bringing a voice to the cause, whether you’re volunteering with people, whether you’re helping a foster family.”

She concluded, “There’s so many different ways that we can be involved with helping children.”

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HOME takes its inspiration, in part, from a real-life Christian hero: George Müller, who cared for more than 10,000 orphans before his death in 1895.

Producer Garret Backstrom explained how the story came together.

“I got the call from my dad, and my dad said, ‘Garrett, you know, you really should be looking at this guy, George Müller, because I think that there’s something there with this guy,’” he recalled.

Backstrom explained that doing a biopic about someone who lived in the 1800s is “expensive,” “tough to pull off” and “difficult because it lacks a lot of that cultural relevancy that’s needed.”

But considering what Müller and his ministry would look like in a modern-day culture gave Backstrom the story he was searching for.

“And then it kind of evolved, and then we had this book that we loved, and some of these characters, and then we had George Müller’s life, and then we had some original kind of vision and story plots and things that we kind of wanted to incorporate, and that’s when this thing kind of got pieced together, and Howard Plaza really birthed this original screenplay,” he explained.