Blue Beetle Reveals First Look at Harvey Guillen as Dr. Sanchez

He may not be part of the Reyes family in Blue Beetle, but DC’s first Latino-led superhero movie has actor Harvey Guillén feeling “seen.” The What We Do in the Shadows star plays Dr. Sanchez, an underling of scheming Kord Industries CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), who has a claim to the ancient alien Scarab that transforms Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) into its latest symbiotic host: the armored superhero Blue Beetle. Guillén shared the first details about his character in an interview with EW, revealing it was the tight-knit Reyes family that drew him to the Angel Manuel Soto-directed movie in theaters August 18th. 

“The character was complex,” Guillén said of Dr. Sanchez. “You’re loyal to the profession and the job that you have,and you’re loyal to being a good person, and you have to make a choice.Sometimes we don’t make the choices. We’re human. And when given achoice, we might make the wrong one.”

Along with Maridueña as Jaime, a recent college grad who returns home to his family in Palmera City, the cast includes Adriana Barraza (Rambo: Last Blood) as Jaime’s grandmother, Nana; Damían Alcázar (Narcos) and Elpidia Carrillo (Mayans M.C.) as Jaime’s parents, Alberto and Bianca; Belissa Escobedo (Hocus Pocus 2) as his sister, Milagro; George Lopez (The George Lopez Show) as Jaime’s Batman-hating Uncle Rudy; and Bruna Marquezine (God Save the King) as Jenny Kord. Rounding out the cast is Raoul Max Trujillo (Sicario) as the villain Carapax, the indestructible man. 

“When I read the script, it was the first timethat I felt that I could get through a whole movie and feel seen,”Guillén said. “Theverbiage that’s being used in the household, it is very driven by familyand heart at the forefront of everything, which is very Latinoculture.”

“I just read that script and I was like, ‘Wait, I grew up watching orlistening to this.’ ‘That’s exactly what my mom would say [or] my tía,’” he continued. “Everything has been thought out, while still tellingthe traditional story of this incredible DC superhero that is coming totheaters for the first time, the first Mexican superhero that we’ve hadin a DC film.”

DC’s Blue Beetle opens only in theaters August 18th.