Luna Lauren Vélez

Miles Morales is lying to his mother in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and Luna Lauren Vélez makes Rio Morales feel like someone whose disappointment would matter. We worried about what those lies were doing to their relationship, because her voice makes a mother's concern more pressing than the rules of another universe. Vélez gives Rio's parental authority warmth without making her sound indulgent.

After her film debut as Lisette Linares in I Like It Like That (1994), television repeatedly cast her in professional roles. She played Detective Nina Moreno in New York Undercover (1995–1999) and Dr Gloria Nathan in Oz (1997–2003). As Maria LaGuerta in Dexter (2006–2012), she gave the police captain enough complexity to resist the easy shorthand of the formidable woman at work. Her strength lies in the depth and complexity she brings to supporting roles, particularly when she is playing women in positions of authority.

The move to voice work as Rio in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) gave that authority a domestic setting. In Across the Spider-Verse, she and Brian Tyree Henry, voicing Miles's father Jeff, make the family worth spending time with. Directors Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson and Joaquim Dos Santos have plenty of other demands on their attention, including too many rules to explain. We would have welcomed more room for the parents and less for those explanations.

Her live-action film work also includes the role of Breanna Diaz in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023). Steven Caple Jr. gives the film an appealing human first hour, before the plot and the shouting take over. It is the less rewarding place to start with Vélez, particularly if the attraction is her ability to make a supporting character matter. Start with Across the Spider-Verse, provided its unfinished story will not spoil the evening.