Echo director: ‘Maya Lopez is a villain - I won’t turn her into Captain America’
Director Sydney Freeland breaks down the "dangerous" new series.
As Marvel's new series Echo nears, director Sydney Freeland has assured fans that main character Maya Lopez is still a villain and that the show "leans in" to that.
We first met Maya, played by Alaqua Cox, in Hawkeye, with Echo exploring how the mysterious character became a high up in Kingpin's (Vincent D'Onofrio) army.
Chatting exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Freeland explained: "This will be Marvel's first TV-MA series and a lot of that stemmed from the story, right? Like, we always knew that we wanted to tell a story that was a little more grounded, it was a little more street level, it was a little grittier.
"The question was just how gritty can we go? How grounded can we be? And one of the most interesting things about Hawkeye was the fact that Maya Lopez was a villain, and that's what really attracted me to the project.
"In conversations with Marvel, as we were talking about the character, the response was, like, 'Let's lean into that, let's see how far we can go down that rabbit hole.’
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"Really, as we come into the series, Maya Lopez is a villain. But the goal is not to turn her into Captain America. No, no, no. That, to me, is actually kind of boring.
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"It's exploring those nuances and those dynamics and also the other thing that was exciting to explore was, how does a Deaf indigenous girl from Oklahoma become a top lieutenant in Kingpin’s army, and potentially even become a successor?
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"Those were all things that we got to explore. And it's a really fun place to be in because it feels a little dangerous."
The new series will see D'Onofrio reprise his role as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and will also see a highly-anticipated appearance from Charlie Cox's Daredevil.
Echo will hit Disney Plus on Wednesday 10th January. Check out the rest of our Sci-Fi and Fantasy coverage, or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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