Why The Cast Of Blue Beetle Looks So Familiar

So many of the most popular superhero movies focus on powerful figures teaming up to fight for the greater good. Ensemble superhero films like "The Avengers" and "Justice League" are great examples of this, while even standalone superhero titles like "Thor: Ragnarok" see multiple crime fighters uniting for a greater cause. In the 2023 DC Comics blockbuster "Blue Beetle," there are no other superhero titans in sight, and the film's titular character is the only superhero on the screen... namely recent college graduate Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña). However, the cast that director Angel Manuel Soto and company assembled for the project impresses enough to be the real-world equivalent of many superheroes joining forces for a grander purpose.

The star-studded cast of "Blue Beetle" includes actors ranging from legendary entertainment industry veterans to up-and-comers who have already demonstrated promise in their earliest roles. Connecting all the wildly varying careers of these performers is that their forays into acting stretch way back before their work in "Blue Beetle." While inhabiting a superhero blockbuster will likely give these actors a big visibility boost and help them win major roles in future shows and movies, "Blue Beetle" by no means represents the be-all and end-all of the filmographies of actors like Raoul Trujillo and Adriana Barraza. Here are all the places, both on the big and small screen, where you've seen the "Blue Beetle" actors before.

Before taking on the role of Jenny Kord in "Blue Beetle," Bruna Marquezine's acting credits were almost exclusively confined to the Brazilian television industry. Her work here in this domain included showing up in 153 episodes of the program "Aquele Beijo" and 143 installments of "Helena's Shadow." Though these programs may not be instantly familiar to many American moviegoers, they proved prominent enough to ensure that she garnered a notable reputation in her home country. In fact, Marquezine gained so much recognition in her native Brazil that she hosted the 2020 edition of the MTV MIAW Awards Brazil alongside Manu Gavassi. 

Her increasing profile as a performer also led her to eventually shift over to projects financed by American companies. These are the pop culture entities that many domestic "Blue Beetle" viewers will be more familiar with. One may have seen Marquezine's face while scrolling through Netflix and catching clips from her 2022 TV show "Maldivas." She also tackled a prominent role in the English-language dance movie "Breaking Through." However, by a considerable margin, "Blue Beetle" ranks as the most high-profile production Bruna Marquezine has appeared in to date and it serves as an introduction to her talents for many viewers. However, just because typical American viewers aren't well-versed in "God Save the King" lore doesn't mean that she didn't have a rich career before this superhero blockbuster.

While Adriana Barraza represents an esteemed veteran in the "Blue Beetle" cast, Belissa Escobedo is an up-and-coming star who plays the spunky character Milagro Reyes. Audiences first saw Belissa Escobedo as a series regular in the short-lived ABC TV show "The Baker and the Beauty." That same year, she showed up in seven episodes of the Quibi program "Don't Look Deeper." Clearly, this performer's 2020 small-screen exploits weren't widely-viewed enterprises, though a pair of 2021 appearances on "American Horror Stories" put her more on people's radar.

Escobedo's most visible pre-"Blue Beetle" acting credit is one of the lead roles in "Hocus Pocus 2." Her character, the teenager Izzy, has a pivotal hand in unleashing the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimi) on the modern world. Given the massive viewership that "Hocus Pocus 2" generated, there's no doubt this production elevated the actor's profile considerably. For viewers of that popular Disney sequel, Escobedo will register as an enormously familiar face within "Blue Beetle." For many others, though, this young performer will, very understandably, attract notice as one of the freshest faces in the blockbuster's ensemble cast.  

If there's anywhere audiences have seen Raoul Trujillo, it's surely in the world of genre cinema. Thanks to one of his very first movie acting credits, "Scanners II: The New Order," Trujillo emerged as a common sight in heightened sci-fi, horror, and action fare. In the decades since his inaugural forays into acting, Trujillo has appeared in such other genre movies as "Highlander: The Final Dimension," "Cowboys & Aliens" and "Riddick." Arguably his most high-profile work as a film actor, though, has been playing the role of Rafael across the first two "Sicario" features. All these movies heavy on explosions and stylized plot elements served as the perfect precursors for his "Blue Beetle" role of Carpax, which entails Trujillo playing not only a villain but one with a super-suit that allows him to go toe to toe with Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle.

Trujillo's sporadic television credits include "The Blacklist" and "Da Vinci's Demons," and he assumed leading man status in more recent TV productions like "Jamestown" and "Mayans M.C." With such a lengthy career as an actor across multiple television and film projects, there's no shortage of places where viewers could become familiar with Raoul Trujillo, though it's doubtful audiences have ever seen him portray someone quite as formidable as "Blue Beetle's" Carpax.

Susan Sarandon's very first acting credit dates back all the way to 1970. Having worked in the acting business for more than 50 years, there's a bottomless well of options for where viewers have seen her before her villainous turn in "Blue Beetle" as Victoria Kord. Midnight movie fans undoubtedly instantly associate her with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," while other camp devotees may instantly think of her from "The Witches of Eastwick." Then, of course, there's her role as one of the two titular leads of "Thelma & Louise," an iconic motion picture known all over the world. And remember how we noted that Adriana Berraza is one of the few Oscar-nominated actors in "Blue Beetle"? Well, Sarandon has been nominated for five Academy Awards and took home the golden statuette for best actress for her performance in "Dead Man Walking." 

Even for younger film geeks, there's a wealth of places in 21st-century cinema where Sarandon has left her mark. Key roles in late-2000s family movies like "Enchanted" and "Speed Racer," for instance, introduced Sarandon to a new generation of moviegoers, and she also appeared in the Lonely Island viral video sensation "Motherlover." When she kicked things off as an actor in 1970, there was no way Sarandon could've imagined her career would entail so many different, iconic properties spanning such a wide array of genres. However, she's managed to achieve just that and, in the process, ensure that she's an incredibly familiar face to anyone sitting down to watch "Blue Beetle."

An interesting anomaly in the main cast of "Blue Beetle," Becky G is the sole actor confined to a voiceover-only role. Playing the entity called Khaji-Da, Becky G does the speaking for the creation inside the Scarab that takes over the body of Jaime Reyes. Functioning as Jaime's own J.A.R.V.I.S., Khaji-Da offers Becky G plenty of opportunities to deliver amusing line deliveries, but she never gets to appear on-screen. Strangely, this quality of her presence in "Blue Beetle" mirrors how many moviegoers are likely familiar with Becky G, since this performer is first and foremost a musician. Thanks to her bevy of hit tunes, viewers are already accustomed to just hearing Becky G's disconnected voice through the radio or streaming apps without ever seeing her physical form.

Superhero movie fans, though, previously saw Becky G on the big screen through her work as Trini Kwan/Yellow Ranger in the 2017 feature "Power Rangers." That blockbuster is one of her few forays into acting which doesn't involve playing a fictionalized version of herself, with other rare examples of this including a key role in the 2018 family movie "A.X.L." and a pair of appearances on the TV show "Empire."