It looks like another actor is ready to be a part of the MCU. Actor Ismael Cruz Córdova, who plays Arondir the elf on Amazon’s The Rings of Power, has hinted that he would like to take a stab at Marvel’s Puerto Rican hero, White Tiger.
In an interview with the Just for Variety podcast, the Puerto Rican actor revealed that he’d like to bring Hector Ayala, better known as Marvel hero White Tiger, to the big screen. “I have very good relationship with the Marvel casting directors,” Córdova revealed during the interview, stating that Marvel Studios had been in touch about roles in the past (though he wisely chose not to disclose which roles those may be).
“I think that’s just another character that’s just fantastic,” Córdova gushed about the Boricua hero. “I love characters that are improbable heroes that are people that have got the worst deck dealt. That is my story. And I find that is many of our stories. And life is not just this little journey of redemption. How many of us were bullied? How many of us were poor? How many of us cast away? How many of our identities were something that you couldn’t be. A lot of us got cards that were a bad deck.”
Hiring Córdova as the hero, who has his own dedicated fanbase, could go a long way to rectifying the issue of lacking Latino representation in superhero films. Though Latinos make up nearly twenty percent of the American population, studios have historically failed to truly explore the cultures of Latin America on-screen.
With the first blockbuster film to feature a Latino superhero being Blue Beetle, which has yet to even come out, the prospect of Hector Ayala joining the MCU is an exciting opportunity for future representation, which is sorely needed at the moment. In fact, Córdova himself has extensive experience with racism in the film industry – his casting sparked a widespread hate campaign against the actor, who had done nothing wrong besides being cast in a fantasy series.
His fellow The Rings of Power castmates of color also suffered similar treatment. On the web, numerous hate articles were written against the show, which was accused, of course, of being too ‘woke’ for daring to diversify its cast list. Though a common refrain amongst these critics is that the best actor for the job should be hired, regardless of race, it seems that they never truly believe in that – after all, Córdova and his castmates were the best picks for their parts.