Echo star Alaqua Cox had zero acting experience when she tried out for and landed the role of Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios' Hawkeye, but she was convinced to give it a go when several friends sent her the same flyer looking for Indigenous deaf women in their 20s to audition for a new TV series.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ and then two other friends sent it to me,” Cox tells Variety. “Now a bunch of people have sent it to me, so I thought, ‘I’ll give it a shot.’”
After a three-month audition process, Cox was offered the part, and impressed the studio so much that they decided to develop a spin-off for her character.
Cox didn't have that many scenes in Hawkeye, but leading her own show was a much bigger challenge on several different levels.
"All the cast and crew would go to ASL classes two or three times a week on Zoom," Cox tells the site when asked how she managed being surrounded by so many non-deaf people on set. "So when I arrived on set, I was greeted with, 'Hello, how are you?' in sign. It was the basics, but it was so nice to be able to communicate. It made me feel way more comfortable and welcomed. We had three or four ASL interpreters on set at one time and all the interpreters were amazing. They helped me communicate with people who weren’t as savvy with ASL. We made it work all together."
Mild spoilers follow.
One particular scene Cox shares with Vincent D'Onofrio (Kingpin) in the penultimate episode proved especially challenging, since she wasn't able to respond to the usual acting cues. Fisk uses a device which allows him to speak to his former protégé, and understand her signed responses.
"There’s a scene with Kingpin — he’s talking to me using his voice, but I’m using sign language when I talk back to him. The problem was I did not know when it was my turn for my line to start. So one of the interpreters came up with the idea of using a buzzing device that we would put in my shirt. When Kingpin was done talking to me, the interpreter would hit the remote on the device to let me know it’s my turn. That was a challenging thing, because all of the Kingpin scenes were very serious and intense and involve a lot of emotion. When the vibration happened, it was, of course, very distracting, and kind of brought me out of it. It was very, very, very tough, but we made it work."
All five episodes of Echo are now streaming on Disney+.
Echo will be the first project under a new banner known as Marvel Spotlight, which takes its name from an anthology comic book series that debuted back in 1971 and was the origin of beloved Marvel characters like Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman.
“Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity," said Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum. "Just like comics fans didn’t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story.”
"Marvel Studios presents Echo in which Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) struggles to reconnect with her Native American roots while balancing aspirations tied to a life of crime as successor to the brutal legacy of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) aka Kingpin," reads the most recent synopsis. "In the first episode, we are introduced to Maya Lopez and her struggles."
In addition to Cox, D'Onofrio and Cox (Charlie), the show will also star Chaske Spencer as Henry, Tantoo Cardinal as Chula, Graham Greene as Skully, Cody Lightning as Cousin Biscuits, Devery Jacobs as Bonnie, and Zahn McClarnon as William Lopez.
The origin story of Echo revisits Maya Lopez (Cox), whose ruthless behaviour in New York City catches up with her in her hometown. She must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward.