How The Cast Compares To The Cartoon
Mia Walsh A guide to the Dora and the Lost City of Gold cast, including star Isabela Moner, and breakdowns of the characters in the live-action adaptation.
The Dora and the Lost City of Gold cast has a number of well-known and some lesser-known actors and actresses, all of whom attempt to bring an adaptation of the hit Nickelodeon cartoon Dora the Explorer to life on the big screen. This is the first time Dora's big adventures have been translated into a feature film, which means lots of characters from the cartoon have made their way into live-action in this new adaptation.
Young explorer Dora and her trusty simian companion Boots were first introduced in 2000 when Dora the Explorer debuted on Nickelodeon. Since then, the pair have spent many episodes going on new adventures and teaching an important lesson or two along the way. After almost 20 years on the air, it's no wonder Dora the Explorer finally got picked for the live-action movie treatment. Director James Bobin and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller, who previously worked together on 2011's The Muppets, have reunited to bring Dora's story to the silver screen. Dora and the Lost City of Gold follows Dora, now a teenager, navigating both the wild jungle and the equally unwieldy world of high school after her parents send her away while they look for a lost Incan city made of gold. Dora is kidnapped, along with her cousin Diego and two of their friends, by criminals who need her expertise to find her parents and lead them all to the fabled lost city.
There's plenty of talent packed into the Dora and the Lost City of Gold cast. Here is the core Dora and the Lost City of Gold cast of actors and actresses, led by Isabela Moner, as well as breakdowns for each character they play.
Isabela Moner as Dora
Isabela Moner is Dora, the hero of Dora and the Lost City of Gold. The character has been aged up significantly from the Nickelodeon cartoon, where Dora is only about seven or eight years old. She may be older but Dora is still very much a fearless explorer who is always ready to save the day. Those instincts come in handy when she is sent to Los Angeles to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousin Diego. Sure, Dora doesn't spend too much time in the average world before being whisked back to the jungle to find her parents, but she does grow from the experience of meeting and adventuring with kids her own age.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is Moner's first big solo film to date. Her early parts include a supporting voice role as Kate on Dora & Friends: Into the City and Nickelodeon's Legends of the Hidden Temple TV movie. Her big break came in 2017 in Transformers: The Last Knight, which she starred in opposite Mark Wahlberg. Since then, she's had roles in Sicario: Day of the Soldado and Instant Family.
Eva Longoria as Elena, Dora's Mom
Eva Longoria plays Elena, Dora's mom. There have been some changes made to the version of Elena we've seen in the Dora cartoons. There, she is a baker as well as a wife and mother. In The Lost City of Gold, Elena is given a bit more to do as an archaeologist and explorer alongside her husband.
Desperate Housewives alum Longoria has been mixing up her workload of late and stayed busy, too. In recent years, Longoria has appeared on episodes of Devious Maids, Jane the Virgin, Empire, and BoJack Horseman. As for recent feature-length film work, Longoria appeared in the 2018 remake of Overboard alongside Anna Faris and her Lost City of Gold co-star, Eugenio Derbez.
Michael Peña as Dora's Dad
Michael Peña plays Dora's dad. Oddly, her dad is never given a first name in the cartoon or in The Lost City of Gold. But who cares about a name when you have a sweet, caring, amusingly dorky dad like Dora's to help dole out life advice in between big archaeological adventures? In the Dora cartoon, Dora's dad is not only a husband and father, but he's also a baseball coach and cook.
Peña's performance in one of the more lighthearted ones he's turned in lately. As a skilled actor able to handle comedy as well as drama, the last few years have seen Peña appear in A Wrinkle in Time, Ant-Man & the Wasp, Narcos: Mexico, and The Mule. After The Lost City of Gold, Peña will star in a horror-comedy remake of the hit '70s TV show Fantasy Island as well as an animated update on the popular Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Jeffrey Wahlberg as Diego
Jeff Wahlberg plays Dora's cousin Diego. In the Dora cartoon, Diego is every bit the adventurer his cousin is and can frequently be seen riding shotgun on each new mission Dora takes on. However, in The Lost City of Gold, Diego has to earn his stripes as an adventurer. When we first meet him, he's just your average teen tasked with helping Dora fit in at a new school.
Wahlberg has been acting professionally since 2012 and only has a handful of on-screen credits so far; The Lost City of Gold could be a breakout role for him. Previously, Wahlberg appeared in Future World, a dystopian indie starring James Franco and Suki Waterhouse, as well as episodes of Counterpart starring J.K. Simmons and HBO's Ballers.
Eugenio Derbez as Alejandro Gutierrez
Eugenio Derbez plays Alejandro Gutierrez, a suave, new character added into this live-action Dora the Explorer movie in order to give Dora and her friends a companion on their rescue mission - but he also happens to be the villain.
Derbez continues his run of English-language films which have helped him break out into the U.S. market following his success as an actor in Mexico. Previous to The Lost City of Gold, audiences saw him in 2018's Overboard, a remake of the '80s comedy. Additional supporting roles for Derbez include Geostorm, Sandy Wexler, and How to Be a Latin Lover.
Madeleine Madden as Sammy
Madeleine Madden plays Sammy, a new character created for this live-action Dora film. Sammy is one of Dora and Diego's classmates. She is a bit of a know-it-all and is generally unamused by Dora's eternal optimism and inclinations as an adventure-seeker. Sammy is part of the foursome kidnapped by Powell on a school field trip and brought back to the jungle to find Dora's parents.
The Lost City of Gold could be a big break for Madden, who is mostly known in her home country of Australia. Madden's previous credits include a co-lead role in the limited series remake of Picnic at Hanging Rock and the Netflix drama Tidelands.
Nicholas Coombe as Randy
Nicholas Coombe plays Randy, another classmate of Dora and Diego's from Los Angeles. Randy rounds out the quartet who are kidnapped and whisked away to the jungle for the film's main adventure. Unlike Sammy, Randy is very much in awe of Dora and her skills as an explorer.
Coombe has been acting for over a decade, beginning as a child actor with small parts on TV and straight-to-DVD movies. He then went on to get one-episode roles on popular shows like Supernatural, iZombie, and The Magicians. Dora and the Lost City of Gold is one of Coombe's biggest roles to date and could potentially be a big breakout for him, too.
Danny Trejo as Boots
Perhaps the most surprising bit of casting goes to Danny Trejo, who lends his voice to the character of Boots. In the Dora cartoon, Boots is a sweet, helpful monkey and friend of Dora's who is always by her side on her adventures.
Trejo is one of the most recognizable faces in film and television, even if you don't know his name. A working actor since the early '80s, some of Trejo's biggest credits to date include Heat, From Dusk Til Dawn, and Spy Kids. More recently, he's been seen in episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Young Justice, and Blue Bloods.
Benicio del Toro as Swiper
Oscar winner Benicio del Toro lends his voice to another iconic Dora the Explorer character: Swiper. In the cartoons, Swiper is a mischevious fox who has a penchant for stealing important items at the worst moments in Dora's adventures. Frequently, she and Boots have to outsmart Swiper or ask him nicely and repeatedly to give back what he took. Luckily, Swiper's more than amenable with the right amount of sweet-talking.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is Del Toro's second role as a voice performer in an animated movie; his first was playing The Snake in 2015's The Little Prince. Del Toro is coming off a critically-acclaimed performance in the limited series Escape at Dannemora, co-starring Patricia Arquette and Paul Dano, but he's known worldwide for his roles in films such as Traffic, 21 Grams, Sicario, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
