What If…?’s Devery Jacobs Debunks Major Echo Fan Theory

Devery Jacobs says, in spite of the fact that she plays two different characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe now, fans can stop looking for connections between them. The Reservoir Dogs star says there are no secrets waiting to be unveiled that tie Bonnie — her upcoming character from Echo — to Kahhori, the superhero she plays in What If…?. Jacobs, who has also appeared in Another Wolfcop and American Gods, reveals that her What If…? role happened long before she was auditioning for Echo, and it’s just a coincidence that she ended up landing both parts. So just think of Kahhori sounding like Bonnie as the opposite of how certain other MCU characters don’t sound exactly like their original actors in What If…?. The multiverse is weird sometimes!

Some fans had suggested that the two might be related, since Jacobs plays both and the two projects are being released back to back, but it doesn’t seem as though Kahhori’s lineage runs through Bonnie’s family. Jacobs suggested it was not widely known that she was even doing both at first, revealing to people on the set of Echo that she had already done a run on What If…?. There was no way she could have known or guessed that the two would end up coming out at basically the same time.

“I think it was a coincidence,” Jacobs told Collider. “It was funny, when I originally got involved with What If…?, it was long before ever auditioning, or knowing that Echo was going to be a project, or that I would be auditioning for it. I didn’t want to send off too many radars that I’m already playing another character, even though it’s animation, even though it’s in another century, in another language, even though it’s in the What If…? universe. Only while I was on set had I mentioned to some of the people working on Echo, I was like, ‘Well, I do actually have another series,’ and they had no idea. And so I don’t know. I love both of these series, and I’m so excited. And it’s wild, it was almost like I couldn’t have planned it out better if I tried, for them to be coming out just weeks apart from each other.  “

The characters don’t seem to have a lot in common, other than their First Nations ancestry and the fact that they’re played by Jacobs. The star did find something to tie them together, though — even if it’s more of an external, “actor-y” thing than anything that will be immediately evident in the narrative.

“I think the connective tissue between ‘What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?’ and between Echo is the use of language,” Jacobs explained. “In both of them, there was a lot of homework involved. There was a lot of studying and making sure that I was getting the languages right. Obviously, that’s Mohawk for What If…?, but then for Echo, I had to learn American Sign Language. My character is a CODA, Child of Deaf Adults, and I get to work off the incredible and legendary Alaqua Cox. And so getting to work with her in Sign Language was something that I carried with a huge sense of responsibility, because I knew this is a bigger community than myself, and one that I had the privilege of being invited to, to play somebody who is in proximity to Deaf culture. I think it was a really special project, and the fact that we get not one but two indigenous heroines, and even if one’s superhero, and in Echo Maya Lopez is more of an anti-hero, both of them are just as badass.”

You can see Jacobs’s episode of What If…? on Disney+ now. Echo will come to Hulu and Disney+ on January 9.