Alaqua Cox (born February 13, 1997) is a Native American (Menominee) actress. She landed her breakthrough role – her first ever acting experience – asMaya Lopez / Echo within theMarvel Cinematic Universe in theDisney+ seriesHawkeye (2021), continuing as the protagonist in the spin-off seriesEcho (2024).[2][3]
On December 2, 2020, in her acting debut, she was cast inHawkeye asEcho.[9] The news drew applause from Deaf activistNyle DiMarco.[10] In June 2021, Echo co-creatorDavid W. Mack reacted to the news of theEcho television series by expressing gratitude to Cox for being a representative for Deaf and Indigenous youth: "I taught at theSchool for the Deaf in Africa, Asia, [and] Europe, in my work for the U.S. State Department, [and] the students love Echo [and] will be happy about this."[11]
At Marvel'sHawkeye premiere, Cox told a reporter fromVariety. "I don't know why they're giving me this opportunity, but I'm just grateful. I'm excited for the support and being able to advocate for the Deaf community. We want to have that equality and get more people involved. I'm just so grateful for all of the opportunities I've been given."[12] Cox told Disney'sD23 magazine thatJeremy Renner andHailee Steinfeld both worked to learn someAmerican Sign Language so that they could communicate more easily with her. "I thought it was sweet of them putting in efforts to learn basic ASL to communicate with me. It means a lot to me as a Deaf person."[4]
