Danny Ramirez Soars as First Latino Avenger and Balances Acting With Upcoming Directing Debut
For most, walking the Willy Chavarria show during Paris Men’s Fashion Week would be a major enough event. For Danny Ramirez, it was just the start.
Since January, the 32-year-old actor has been crisscrossing the world to promote Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” taking the film to London, Spain, Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco and more. It’s a tour fitting for the project, which has been percolating since 2019 and finally arrived in theaters last Friday. Despite so-so reviews, the film topped the U.S. box office over the three-day holiday weekend.
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Ramirez, best known for his role in “Top Gun: Maverick,” had just finished that movie when a mysterious audition for a Marvel project landed in his inbox. Eventually the character name Joaquin was thrown around, but Ramirez still wasn’t sure who the character was until the casting call from Marvel came in.
“They said, ‘Hey, we’ve been waiting to make this call for a long time. Every city we’ve traveled to, people were asking us ‘when’s the first Latino Avenger?’” Ramirez recalls. “And they were like, ‘I’m happy to say that he’s here.’”
His character, Joaquin Torres, also known as Falcon, first appeared in the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” before the “Captain America” movie. When he started reading the comics, he quickly was drawn to Joaquin’s energy.
“He’s hitting it on the nose. He’s flying out of a window here. He’s doing all these chaotic little things that are so opposite of someone like Sam Wilson, who is Captain America, who holds himself with such professionalism,” Ramirez says. “And so I’d be able to lean into a little bit of chaos.”
The significance of playing the first Latino Avenger is something he’s still comprehending as he tours the movie around the world.
“As an actor, I never necessarily thought of having a figurine or thinking of a product being any part of artistic validation. But I think when you realize that some things are bigger than you, I think that’s where representation [matters] — it has always mattered. But I think I had always walked into a room not necessarily being like, ‘I’m representing the whole community.’ I’ve been myself since I was born, and so now this is an unshakeable and amazing responsibility to have that,” Ramirez says.
“Whether or not I think I’m walking in the door with it, it walks in the door with me. And seeing these kids that feel represented, or even the DMs or the people tweeting about the importance of seeing themselves. Or seeing people fully dressed up in cosplay, and someone’s like, ‘yeah, I’ve never cosplayed someone ever, but you’re one of us, bro.’ And I was like, ‘oh, damn.’”
Ramirez didn’t find acting until, as a college soccer player at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, an injury gave him the opportunity to witness a movie set. It was a weekend practice and Ramirez was on crutches watching the practice from the sidelines when a PA walked on the field and asked if anyone could be an extra for a scene.
“I was like, ‘I’m not practicing, and it’d be cool to see how [a movie] is made,’” he says. While watching them shoot a soccer scene for the movie “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” starring Kiefer Sutherland and Riz Ahmed, he remembers thinking, “I could do that.”
From there he bought a bunch of acting books and started doing online castings, eventually landing in New York and enrolling first at NYU Poly before switching to Tisch when acting became his sole focus.
His career thus far has been heavy on action films, but he’s looking to add in some variation in the near future. Ahead, he’ll be seen in the second season of “The Last of Us,” and “Pursuit of Touch,” which he wrote, with Jeremy O. Harris producing. He is also set to star and direct in “Baton,” a gritty soccer drama he wrote that touches on “sacrifice, grief and legacy,” he says.
“A lot of the stuff that I’ve gotten has just been the work that was available to me. That’s who cast me,” Ramirez says. “I’ve been really lucky that the work I’ve done are projects that have been financed and set up and have gone forward and are really awesome. From the indie work I’ve done to ‘Captain America.’ I’m hopeful and nervous, because now it’s up to me at some point to start deciding which projects to do.”
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