Xolo Maridueña Says Mom Prepared Him for 'Blue Beetle' by 'Reading Comic Books Instead of Goodnight Moon' (Exclusive)

The "Cobra Kai" star opens up about leading the new DC Studios film "Blue Beetle" — and how family keeps him both humble and inspired

Xolo Maridueña is having a whirlwind career moment. And as the 22-year-old Cobra Kai star soars onto the big screen in the titular superhero role of Blue Beetle (in theaters Aug. 18), he’s reminding himself of his core philosophy: “Stay grounded with family and friends.”

“That has been a thing that has helped keep my mental state the best, having people around me that have been there,” Maridueña tells PEOPLE in a phone interview conducted in July pre-SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike. Without his mother, father, and extended family grounding him, he says, it would be far more difficult to “figure out where I fit in with this larger Hollywood world or ecosystem.”

His mother Carmelita, in fact, helped Maridueña prepare for leading a superhero movie in more ways than she knew. “I personally was not a huge comic book reader,” the actor admits. “But my mother, who helped raise me and was reading me bedtime stories at night, definitely was reading comic books instead of, you know, Goodnight Moon."

“She was the type of kid who worked to buy records and comic books," he continued. "So for that reason, of course, I knew who Blue Beetle was and had watched Young Justice and was familiar with the character.”

Still, even after booking a modeling job in a Sears catalog as a kid, landing a regular role on the hit series Parenthood, and playing Miguel Diaz in the Netflix drama Cobra Kai, Maridueña never dared to think he could helm a project as massive as Blue Beetle. “As an actor, you never really think, ‘All right, I could be a superhero,’ ” he says. “And that is one of the biggest pieces to wrap my head around, is how monstrous this opportunity is. I truly feel like it has taken 22 years of self-actualization to be ready for this moment.”

What role does his mom now play in that journey? Maridueña laughs. “She plays the role of telling me to pick up my dog's crap in the morning,” he says. “Basically reminding me about keeping my toes on the ground.”

Related: Watch Xolo Maridueña Gain Superpowers and Fly to Space in DC Studios' 'Blue Beetle' Trailer

He adds, “In all seriousness, my family is the biggest source of support that I have… Growing up, because they were so toxically positive with any venture that I ever wanted to do, whether it was stop-motion animation or writing or chemistry, they always instilled such confidence in me and believed in me. Even though I was a bad soccer player, they still went to my game!"

“I wasn't always the best, but they really helped create this sense of confidence at a young age — whether it was illusory or real — that I could do anything that I put my mind to,” he continues. “They were so supportive and they made so many sacrifices.”

With Blue Beetle soon to dazzle comic book fans — and Latinx audiences seeing an authentically represented family in this genre for the first time — Maridueña says he “can start to practice all of these lessons” his family taught him. “And it's not lost on me that that is a rarity, especially when it comes to the arts.”

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With his first decade in showbiz under his belt, Maridueña admits Hollywood is a “fickle” industry. “It's hard out there. There's not necessarily a tangible, like, ‘Now you are a doctor, now you are a lawyer.’ But I think hopefully with movies like Blue Beetle, Across the Spider-Verse, Joy Ride, all of these wonderful movies highlighting, in a really positive way, different cultures, it'll hopefully instill confidence” in young audiences not used to seeing themselves on screen, he says.

“That’s something I find so inspiring about movies,” he concludes. “I remember some of my earliest memories were watching Men in Black a hundred thousand times because I just thought Will Smith was the coolest guy ever. And he wasn't even Latino! [Representation] really goes a long way and I'm so excited finally for Blue Beetle to come out to just fill in another piece of the puzzle.”

Blue Beetle, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and costarring Adriana Barraza, Damián Alcázar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon, and George Lopez, premieres in in theaters Aug. 18.

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