Before she was cast in Marvel’s 2021 Disney+ series “Hawkeye,” Alaqua Cox had never considered becoming an actor. But then several friends sent her the same flyer looking for Indigenous deaf women in their 20s to try out for a new TV show.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ and then two other friends sent it to me,” Cox says via an ASL interpreter. “Now a bunch of people have sent it to me, so I thought, ‘I’ll give it a shot.’”
Cox went through a three-month audition process to play Maya Lopez, a tough-as-nails enforcer for crime lord Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), who comes to question her loyalties when she learns Fisk ordered the death of her father, William (Zahn McClarnon). Cox’s performance was so striking, Marvel built a gritty spinoff series around her, “Echo,” with a cast made up almost entirely of Indigenous actors, including Graham Greene (“Dances With Wolves”) and Tantoo Cardinal (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) as Maya’s grandparents, Skully and Chula; Devery Jacobs (“Reservation Dogs”) as her cousin, Bonnie; and Chaske Spencer (“The Twilight Saga”) as her uncle, Henry. Navajo filmmaker Sydney Freeland (“Reservation Dogs”) directs the bulk of the series, along with Aboriginal Australian filmmaker Catriona McKenzie (“Shining Vale”).
All five episodes premiere on Disney+ and Hulu on Jan. 9, making Cox the first Indigenous deaf person to lead a TV series.
Cox spoke with Variety about what she thought her life was going to look like before “Hawkeye” and “Echo,” how the cast and crew worked to accommodate her use of ASL on the set, what she’d like life after Marvel to look like — and why she asked Greene for an autograph the first time they met.
What do you remember about deaf characters when you were growing up?
I remember seeing deaf roles portrayed by hearing people, which of course is not right. I would say, “Why are they signing that wrong?” or “The facial expressions aren’t completely accurate with the signing.” You can tell it’s not a real deaf person. I wish we had more deaf roles being portrayed growing up, but now we have “CODA,” of course, that won the Oscar, and we’re breaking down barriers now for the deaf community. They should be picking deaf actors for these deaf roles to make it authentic, and it seems like we’re making it happen.
What did you learn from making “Hawkeye” that you applied to your performance for “Echo”?
I learned a lot of patience, because I was signing my lines faster, and they said, “Take your time. I know it’ll feel weird, but it’ll look good on camera.” I’d be like, OK, but this feels awkward, taking these long beats.
Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal have had decades of experience; what was it like to work alongside actors with such long careers?
My grandmother and my mother are huge fans of Graham Greene. They have a crush on him. When I met Graham Greene, I was like, “Do you mind signing this paper for my grandma?” He’s just such a joy to work with. Graham Greene and Tantoo both remind me of my grandparents. When I first met them, we clicked immediately just in an Indigenous way.
What kind of response are you seeing from the people in your home reservation in Wisconsin to your work with Marvel?
On the reservation I grew up on, the Menominee tribe, we’re all very close knit. People would come up to me right away, and they say, “We’re so proud of you for getting this role and being able to show authentic representation of Indigenous people. Our ancestors are so proud of you.” That’s so nice to hear that.
Of course, the Indigenous and the deaf community, both of them are very small and underrepresented. We want to make this community shine, and we finally have the capability of doing that because of the MCU. It’s such a big platform. And I’m so excited that our stories are able to be told by authentic [Indigenous and deaf] people.
Maya is a very physically and emotionally demanding role. How did you approach your portrayal, since you’d never acted before?
They were able to hire deaf people behind the camera who helped me out. I had an ASL consultant who was deaf on set, and he helped me with the translation of English into ASL of my lines. I also had a deaf acting coach and a deaf personal trainer. I told [Marvel] that I would like to be able to have one-on-one conversations with them, instead of going through an interpreter. And they actually made it happen.
When you were on set and surrounded by so many people who aren’t deaf, how did that work for you?
Before we started production, I said, “Just take ASL classes,” and they listened. All the cast and crew would go to ASL classes two or three times a week on Zoom. 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.
How did it work when you were acting, since so many cues are usually auditory?
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.
One thing that struck me in the show was how many scenes there were in just ASL, and how the actors could convey emotion with their hands as much with their faces, something that is still so rare in TV and film. What was that process like for you?
ASL, of course, has hand movement and body movement, but the most important part is to be able to convey the message. It’s hard to make those decisions, because English and ASL are different — the word order and structure is different. So it’s another layer on top of a layer on top of layer, which makes it very challenging to be able to make those decisions. But ASL is already such an expressive language, so I think it just kind of naturally went hand in hand.
What would you like for your acting career to look like beyond Marvel? Have you been approached at all for any any other roles?
Maya is a mix of both a villain and an antihero; I’d like to be able to do different kinds of roles. I have been asked to be in a few, but most of them are always the bad guy roles, and I don’t want to be the bad guy all the time.
Since you hadn’t considered acting as a profession until “Hawkeye,” where did you see your life going instead? What kind of career or professions were you looking at after college?
I dropped out of college, actually. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At that time, I was job hopping. I went to different factories, like Amazon, and then I worked at a nursing home. Actually, I did like working with the elderly, so I decided, you know, I would earn money from from that work and then I’d quit and I’d travel the world. But I had no plans for my future, really. And now I’m here. And my future feels like it’s planned out. It’s just so crazy.
This interview has been edited and condensed.