Sydney Freeland grew up with powwows and comic books. In 'Echo,' she brings them together
LOS ANGELES — When Sydney Freeland was in high school, she would often get in trouble for doodling characters like Spider-Man and Venom in her notebooks.
The Navajo filmmaker grew up reading comics — "specifically Marvel comic books," she says — and as a teenager would think about how those superhero stories would make great movies. (Hollywood would eventually agree, with multiple studios releasing multiple superhero comic book-based tentpoles a year nowadays.) Freeland's love for comics and drawing even played a role in her decision to study fine arts in college.
But that teenager never imagined she would grow up to work on Marvel's first television series that centers on a Native American protagonist. That's partly because the concept of becoming a filmmaker wasn't something that existed for Freeland back then.
"Echo," which will launch on both Disney+ and Hulu in its entirety on Jan. 9, follows , a young Choctaw woman who heads back to her hometown after a (violent) falling out with her former crime boss. The series was even before Maya, portrayed by Alaqua Cox, made" as the formidable leader of a local gang and one of the very few within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
