Alaqua Cox, Menominee actress from Wisconsin, appears on 'Tonight Show,' 'GMA' for new show 'Echo'

Alaqua Cox, the Menominee actress from Wisconsin who stars in Marvel’s new TV series, "Echo," has had a chance to tell her story to nationwide audiences this week.

She was a guest on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" on Tuesday night and on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday morning.

Cox stars as Maya Lopez, aka Echo, and is Marvel’s first live-action Native American and deaf superhero. "Echo," which premiered last week, is the No. 1 show on Disney+ and Hulu.

Fallon welcomed Cox to "The Tonight Show" using sign language and then asked her how she was doing, especially after becoming a new mom in October.

Cox replied that her son is the sweetest baby, even though he wakes her up three or four times a night.

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said through a sign language interpreter.

Cox first appeared as Echo in Marvel’s “Hawkeye” in 2021 and it was her first acting gig. Fallon asked her if she always to act.

“Acting was never on my radar,” Cox said.

She explained how her friends encouraged her to try out for the role after the studio was looking for a deaf, Indigenous woman in her 20s.

Cox was hesitant, at first, especially because she’s an amputee and the character, Echo, was originally not an amputee.

But she earned the role after a few months of auditioning and now has her own TV show.

“Maya is a badass,” Cox told Fallon about her character. “She journeys to Oklahoma to reconnect with her Indigenous roots.”

Cox is Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican from Wisconsin, but her character is Choctaw, a tribal nation that has a reservation in Oklahoma.

Cox said she had to do a lot of stunt training for the action role, but explained she grew up tough in Wisconsin, playing basketball with her older brother and being bounced around on an inner tube boating on a lake near her home.

Fallon also asked her what the TV show would’ve meant to her growing up as it stars an Indigenous and deaf superhero.

“Maya is a person of color,” Cox said. “She’s Indigenous and she’s deaf and an amputee. I’m so grateful to be able to bring her to life. I wish I had that kind of representation growing up.”

“I’m so excited for this new generation to see a unique and different kind of power on the screen. … I want these kids to know that they can go ahead and do anything and they can feel inspired. There’s no limits for their life.”

On "Good Morning America," host Gio Benitez showed a 2018 clip of her as a fan outside a window of the studio.

They talked about how she was on the outside looking in and now she was inside talking to them.

“It feels so surreal,” Cox said on the show. “I was job-hopping back then and I had earned enough money to travel to New York City with my partner. I remember thinking that we have to make it on TV.”

The hosts then presented her with a onesie for her baby.

All five episodes of “Echo” are streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin's Alaqua Cox talks about 'Echo' on 'Tonight Show,' 'GMA'