Cara Buono was totally thrilled with where her character’s arc goes in Stranger Things season 5.

The actress, 54, has been playing Karen Wheeler, mom to Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Holly (Nell Fisher) since season 1. In Vol. 1 of the show’s final season, Buono tells PEOPLE that Karen “went from this quiet protector with a lot of subtext that she didn’t get to express” and transformed into “an action hero with a broken wine bottle.”

Karen was a standout in episode 2 of the first drop, which premiered on Netflix on Nov. 26, as she fearlessly defended her daughter, Holly, from a Demogorgon inside the Wheelers’ house. After they held their breath and hid underwater in a bathtub, Karen was defiant as she fought the monster from the Upside Down, breaking a wine bottle in half to stab and weaken the creature.

“I was so excited to see that they gave me so much incredible action, and it was just really satisfying to see her just step into this powerful fight onscreen,” Buono tells PEOPLE.

“And she didn’t hesitate. There wasn’t a flicker of doubt or worry. It was just — instantaneous hero, and she took what she had available, and tried to save her daughter,” she adds.

Buono says she channelled previous female screen heroes, like Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis, when filming Karen’s ambitious fight scene.

“I wanted to have an homage to her,” she says of Weaver, 76, in particular, and her iconic Alien scenes, one of which has been compared closely to Karen’s own scene by fans.

“There’s been some comparison — which I love, and I think was intentional too, when the Duffers wrote it — when Karen says, ‘Stay away from my daughter,’ and in Alien, [Weaver] goes, ‘Stay away from her, you bitch,’ to the alien,” Buono explains.

She reveals that she actually filmed a take of the scene where Karen mimicked Weaver’s famous Alien line, but it didn’t make the cut. “I actually did a take like that, where I said that, but they said they couldn’t use that,” she reveals. “I love all those movies, and I love Sigourney Weaver.”

Fans have also noted the similarity between Buono’s defense of Holly and Mrs. Weasley’s defense of her daughter Ginny (Bonnie Wright) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

“I love all the Harry Potter movies, I’ve been seeing that comparison,” Buono says. “No one would have seen that coming [from Molly Weasley], right? She was always a homemaker and, like, ‘Come in, Harry, sit down.’ She’s like a warm cup of tea. I’ve been enjoying that comparison.”

“The response has been so great,” Buono continues. “I’ve been hearing from people that they’ve been incredibly moved. Like, parents who’ve gotten back to me that they’ve been very emotional about that scene, and I think for women, I think people are really hungry to see women over 40 step into these powerful opportunities onscreen as well.”

“We’ve seen Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis, [who have proved that] you don’t age out of authority, you age into it. I feel like there’s been a lot of that reaction, and that’s been really fun,” she adds.

In this final season of the hit Netflix series from the Duffer brothers, Buono says that Karen’s years of “emotional vigilance finally turn into action.”

“She spent all these seasons worrying and sensing danger, and trying to hold her family together,” she says. “I just feel like the conclusion of her arc — it’s not really about becoming someone new. I think it’s just about revealing who she’s always been and what she’s always been capable of.”

Volume 1 of Stranger Things season 5 is now streaming on Netflix. Volume 2 drops Dec. 25, followed by the finale on Dec. 31.