Q&A: Actress Alaqua Cox and Director Sydney Freeland from Marvel Studio’s New Series, Echo

Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios' Echo, exclusively on Disney+. (Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.)

BY KAILI BERG 

 

JANUARY 03, 2024

Echo, the latest Disney+ series from Marvel Studios, tells the story of a Native American woman, Maya Lopez, who rises to become boss of the New York street gang Tracksuit Mafia under the tutelage of crime lord Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), all while being deaf and a leg amputee.

Alaqua Cox (Menominee), who is also an amputee and deaf, reprises her character from Hawkeye, torn between the criminal underworld and the Choctaw family that shaped her childhood, leading her to return to her hometown where she must come to terms with her past, reconnect with her Native American roots, and embrace her family and community. 

Native News Online spoke with director Sydney Freeland as she discussed Marvel's partnership with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Maya’s superpowers and what she is excited about for audiences to learn about Indian Country. We also spoke to Cox about her starring role.

All episodes of Echo will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu on January 10, and will be available on Hulu until April 9, 2024. 

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Native News Online: How is the show different from other shows that you have previously written and directed? 

Sydney Freeland: I am so excited that we get to have the MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) first Native Indigenous badass. We say that because she is not a hero but a villain, and that is one of the things that I find so interesting about the character. What was so great about Hawkeye was the fact that she was a villain and criminal. We really leaned into that. I am really excited for audiences to see different corners of the MCU but also for Marvel fans to be introduced to Indian Country.  

NNO: While Maya’s identity in the comics is traditionally associated with the Blackfeet Tribe, why did the creative team behind the scenes make the change to Choctaw? 

SD: We have deaf representation and Indigenous representation. In the first comic book run, the character Maya Lopez is Blackfeet, and Daredevil is beautifully illustrated, and there is a bunch of Native American iconography and imagery, but it's arbitrary. There are things from the ancestral Pueblos in the Southwest, and it's like, “Oh, that’s Inuit from Alaska, and that's Six Nations from New York.” That's not the fault of the illustrators, but it was just the resource they had at the time when making this. We wanted it to be as authentic as possible because we had Choctaw writers in the writing room. I think that it came about organically being able to engage the Choctaw Nation and their input and advice on things that sealed the deal for us. 

NNO: Can you explain Maya's superpowers within the show and why they differ from her comic book counterpart?

SD: On the deaf perspective side in the comic books, Maya Lopez is also an expert lip reader. “I am Indigenous, but I am not deaf”, is one of the things we really worked hard to do. [We had] deaf writers in the writer's room, deaf consultants behind the scenes, an ASL [American Sign Language]  master who translated scripts from English to ASL, and also deaf-Indigeous actors playing deaf-Indigneous roles. One of the things that we all learned along the way was that even the best lip readers in the world can only understand about 30 percent of everything that is being said. In our efforts for authenticity we decided to deviate from that in the comic books in order for it to be more authentic to the deaf experience. As far as Maya’s powers and how they differ in the series, you will just have to watch and find out how it all comes together.

NNO: What did you love about playing your character Maya Lopez? 

Alaqua Cox: “I loved playing her because she is just a really challenging character to become. I had to have an acting coach help me become and use her emotions to be able to become her. She’s full of rage, and when I look at that kind of character, I am able to slowly become her by watching her more and more and thinking about her. She is also stubborn, which I am as well, and that helped me become and embody her.” 

We wanted it to be as authentic as possible because we had Choctaw writers in the writing room. I think that it came about organically being able to engage the Choctaw Nation and their input and advice on things that sealed the deal for us. — Sydney Freeland, Director of Marvel Studios' Echo

NNO: What influenced you to pursue your career as an actor?

AC: I never actually ever thought of acting as a career at first. I was sent the casting call from a friend on social media that they were looking for an Indigenous deaf woman in their twenties. At first I said no, but then I had two other people send it to me so I thought I would give it a shot and here we are. Now I have the role, could you imagine if I said no at first, I wouldn’t even be here, but so grateful to be here now.

NNO: How did you go about preparing to play Maya Lopez? Were there lessons from your own background or family history that were brought in to add details into your role?

AC: I prepared myself by meeting with the director beforehand. She helped me develop the character, rehearsed lines together, and wanted to bring Maya to life, which really helped me a lot. I had an acting coach and a deaf consultant who helped me on set that would translate all of my lines from English to ASL, and that is how we became Maya with the help of all those people.

NNO: What do you hope audiences will take away from your character, especially within the Indigenous community? 

AC: I think about the importance of family and community because when you think about Maya opening up to her blood family, she struggles with that. She then realizes that she needs to open up somehow and find the understanding of what family means, and I am hoping the audience will be able to see that throughout this series.

Q&A: Richie Palmer, Executive Producer of New Marvel Studio's Series Echo

ECHO, releasing on Disney+ & Hulu. (Image © 2023 MARVEL)

BY KAILI BERG 

 

JANUARY 03, 2024

Marvel Studios' new show Echo is a thrilling new approach to the storytelling comic book fans have come to love from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). 

The upcoming series' lead character is a deaf amputee Native American anti-hero who was last seen in the Marvel series Hawkeye. 

Echo be the first time a Marvel Series has a TV-MA rating, which means the program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and, therefore, may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17. It will also be the first Marvel Studios series to debut simultaneously on Disney+ and Hulu beginning January 10. 

 Native News Online had the chance to sit down with  Echo executive producer Richie Palmer to discuss his involvement in the series, Indigenous representation, shooting his favorite scene, and how actors brought their own personalities to the show. 

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Native News Online: How did your involvement in the show Echo come about and what drew you to it? 

Richie Palmer: We are all big fans of the character Maya Lopez at the studio. I can get very specific with you because she comes from an awesome run of Daredevil comics in the late 90s that I actually remember reading when they were coming out. Those single issues were a very famous run illustrated by Joe Costa and written by David Mack, who has done awesome covers. This was a very iconic period at Marvel comics. [These] characters really stood out and were always a favorite of ours behind the scenes. [We were always] saying, "Wouldn't it be great if we could tell the story of Maya Lopez one day?" It was always a question of how to do it; how do we tell a story about Maya Lopez that isn't going to get bogged down by the rest of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe); and how can we take this character from the comics that we see a lot of potential in and bring her to screen and really tell a story about her and her family and not get it so wrapped up in everything else going on in the larger universe.

 NNO: How has Indigenous representation changed during your career so far?

RP: It has definitely grown, and when you have a show like Echo or Reservation Dogs, these shows are bringing things to the forefront that five to 10 years ago wouldn't have been. It has been a real growing experience for us here at Marvel. I hope that Maya Lopez bringing her Native culture to screen in such a grand way because of what we can do at Marvel, I hope that we can also do with other relatively obscure characters from the comics and bring them to the forefront and put them in the spotlight of the Marvel Universe, and with that honor and culture that comes with some of these characters.

NNO: Why is it important to include Indigenous people not only in the cast but in the storylines as well?

 RP: We couldn't pick a character like Maya Lopez and put her on screen and not authentically represent who she is as a person. In the comics, her background is a little inconsistent, I would say, so we decided to make her Choctaw because we had writers from all different backgrounds and tribal affiliations in our writer's room. It was our Choctaw writer, Steven Paul Judd, who kept bringing very personal stories to the table, and we wanted to tell the stories he was telling. We had to make sure that we were honoring the Choctaw culture if we were going to tell these stories. We met with the Choctaw Nation, Chief Baton, and his team, and it was an instant partnership. It was so important just because we needed to tell a very entertaining story with a very complex character that was deaf and Choctaw. We needed to make sure that we got those things right. If we don't get those things right, then nobody is going to care about the fun story we are trying to tell with this fun character. It all just went hand in hand, and it was really important that we got those aspects of the character correct.

NNO: Were any of the actors involved in the writing of the language in the series? It has this rich but unexpected comedic nature that I really love about it. 

RP: All the actors, especially when using ASL, brought their own personality to their characters. They were all there in terms of dialogue and shorthand, making sure that everything felt authentic to each specific character. We had a producer on set named Doug Ridloff, who was deaf and worked with all the actors to each have their own way of signing. The whole thing was a collaboration where we were working on all the actors' scenes, which kept it loose and fresh and authentic to real humans.  

NNO: What was your overall experience producing Echo, and what was your favorite thing about the process?

RP: It was amazing, and we learned a lot. Seeing over the course of making the show what it means to people really grounds you and reminds you of the kind of power that we have and how responsible you have to be with it. For me, it was working with great people like Sydney Freeland, our cinematographers, costume designers, and the production side — we had such a great team on this one. 

Everybody was from different backgrounds, and it was truly a special time. A very special sequence we got to do was shoot a powwow. We put on a real powwow and flew in people who are real powwow dancers, drummers, and emcees. We brought in real people and put on a real powwow over five nights. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before in my life. 

About The Author

Kaili Berg
Staff Reporter
Kaili Berg (Aleut) is a member of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Nation, and a shareholder of Koniag, Inc. She is a staff reporter for Native News Online and Tribal Business News. Berg, who is based in Wisconsin, previously reported for the Ho-Chunk Nation newspaper, Hocak Worak. She went to school originally for nursing, but changed her major after finding her passion in communications at Western Technical College in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.