Meet Jona Xiao, Marvel’s Newest Superhero Who Is Making History
The pansexual Chinese-American actress, athlete, and entrepreneur talked to GO about her journey from the flag football field to the Marvel Universe.
From the white walls of her LA home, Jona Xiao sits in a black, crisscross halter top, smiling brightly as her long black hair hangs in front of her shoulders. In the background, plants sit on a floating shelf, and a black and white photo hangs proudly, with the words ”CAREER ACTIVATE, LEVEL UP.”
“Growing up, I just loved the superhero genre, like for DC and Marvel. I loved the X-Men series, all of the different superpowers,” Xiao recalled to GO, laughing. “When I was younger, I would wish for superpowers on every birthday.”
While Xiao may not have acquired any superpowers, her journey has reflected that true heroism is about breaking limits and creating space for others to do the same. On screen, she has built an impressive resume spanning both television and film, from playing Julie Yang, the first female coder in Halt and Catch Fire, to voicing young Namaari in Raya and the Last Dragon, appearing in Victorious, and more.
Now, she gets to play the superhero she has always wanted to be, recently revealing at San Diego Comic-Con that she’ll be voicing the superhero Iron Fist in the animated series Eyes of Wakanda, debuting August 1. And while there have been female Iron Fists across the Marvel comics, Xiao makes history by voicing the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first-ever female Iron Fist. The role was just as much of a shock to her as it was to fans, revealing that she found out the character was Iron Fist when she made a callback with casting.
“I auditioned for this project a couple years ago, and at the time, I didn’t know this was Iron Fist. Marvel was very good at keeping things under wraps. My understanding of it was just a really amazing, badass martial artist,” she said. “I knew it was part of the Wakanda Universe, but it wasn’t until I read the script that it was at some point I say, ‘I am Iron Fist’ where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!”
As a high-level competitive flag football player, Xiao is already used to throwing spirals, taking hits, and moving with purpose—on the field and now, voicing it on screen. She was a quarterback on the USA National Flag Football Team Prelim Roster, plays quarterback for the She-Unit flag football team, and has been playing in the National Gay Football League, where she played for the Los Angeles Icons and recently took home a championship win in Chicago. The discipline, all-or-nothing mindset, and teamwork skills from flag football translated seamlessly into the Eyes of Wakanda role.
“Team sports, working on a film or TV show, it’s so much teamwork for both realms,” she said. “It’s the ultimate teamwork of like, ‘Here are my strengths, here’s what I contribute, and we all have to trust each other and believe in a bigger vision.’ That’s something that both worlds are very similar in terms of having that common vision.”
Her drive to empower others didn’t just emerge overnight—it was born from personal experience. Long before Xiao became a working actress, flag football player, and entrepreneur, she faced the harsh side of the entertainment industry.
At 12 years old, her dreams were nearly derailed when she was scammed by a talent agency. This early disappointment planted the seed for something bigger: a mission to help other actors avoid the same traps she faced and to navigate their careers with clarity and confidence. That mission took shape in the form of Career ACTivate, an organization she founded in 2013 that provides actors with tools, strategies, and mentorship to thrive in the entertainment industry.
Through her personal experiences and work with Career ACTivate, she realized just how often actors, especially actors early in their careers, fall into the trap of people-pleasing, saying yes to everything, fearing rejection, or molding themselves to fit someone else’s idea of being “marketable.” Xiao explained that voicing a fierce and unapologetic character such as Iron Fist has reminded her that strength comes from authenticity, not accommodation.
“It’s taught me to stand up for myself more especially, because I am a people pleaser, and recently, I’ve been working on being more of a Jona pleaser,” she said. “I really respect that my character is very aligned with their values and is like, ‘These are my values, this is what I stand for.’ So that’s something my character helped me learn, too. Knowing your values and taking actions that align with it and growing 100%.”
For Xiao, embracing her identity as pansexual was another powerful step in choosing to show up as her full self without apology. In 2023, at the Gay Games, she publicly came out in an Instagram post, saying “Turns out my love life is as diverse as my sports interests.” Just as she encourages actors to honor their truth in their craft, she’s learned to do the same in her personal life. It’s not about fitting into boxes, but breaking them open.
“I think it was almost harder to come out to my parents than it was on social media to the world. I give a lot of credit to so many people who have come out before me, and for me, it made it a lot more comfortable to come out,” she said. “I’m a proud pansexual.”
While Marvel fans can now watch Eyes of Wakanda on Disney+, she teased to GO, “Iron Fist and one of the Hatut Zeraze, which is like the Wakandan CIA, get into a romantic entanglement, which I think is really cool that they give the female Iron Fist a romantic storyline. So it starts with a romantic entanglement, and then they’re basically battling it out.”
On August 1, she’ll make an appearance at Scum and Villainy Cantina in Hollywood for an Eyes of Wakanda watch party, where she’ll watch episodes with attendees and hold a discussion panel to answer any juicy questions fans might have about the series.
“I’m excited for fans to see two people, these leads of this storyline, who both are very justified in their viewpoint in what they stand for culturally and protecting their people and honoring their duty,” she said. “In my opinion, in life, there are very few times where there’s an objective bad guy. The deeper we understand a person, I believe we can love anyone. It doesn’t mean we should be around them; we might need to love them from afar. But I think if we truly understood one another, we would have love for one another. I hope that viewers get to see two good people on different sides of a perspective and how they work things out.”
