Xolo Maridueña is ready for the big leagues, and the actor’s new cover proves it. Maridueña, who stars as Miguel Diaz in the Karate Kid spinoff Cobra Kai, and who will soon step into the superhero shoes of Jaime Reyes, aka Blue Bettle – the first Latino superhero to headline their own film – is looking pretty good in purple on the cover of Teen Vogue’s New Hollywood issue.
Maridueña, who has been acting since he was 11, has become a household name thanks to Cobra Kai, a show that, as he shared with Teen Vogue, has gifted him with a second family. “I’m really blessed to say that we’ve been working on a show for five years where truly everyone still loves each other,” he said, and this seems to be anything but empty platitudes.
The actor does have a podcast with Jacob Bertrand, who stars on the show as Hawk.
But that wasn’t all the actor shared with Teen Vogue. Just as when Remezcla had a chance to talk to him before the last season of Cobra Kai, Maridueña had some thoughts about representing our communities.
“What tends to happen in Hollywood sometimes,” he shared “the pitfalls that we see, (is) that when you’re Latino in Hollywood, you’re Mexican; and when you’re Asian in Hollywood, you’re Chinese. And that’s really not the case.”
A bigger platform for a young, informed, and talented actor like Maridueña will help change that. Cobra Kai has already taken his advice when it comes to making the representation more authentic. And this latest cover, with Maridueña staring straight at the camera, ready to take on whatever comes next, feels like a pretty good omen of what’s to come.