Mary Rivera, the Filipina actress who played Ned’s grandma (or lola) in Spider-Man: No Way Home, has died. She was 82.
She died April 15 in Honolulu, Hawaii. TMZ reported that Rivera had suffered a stroke before her death.
Rivera was born in Iloilo Province, in the Philippines on June 2, 1943. She attended the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City and graduated in 1964 with a degree in education. After college she worked for the radio station Kanlaon Broadcasting System. It it unclear when she moved to U.S., but she lived in Hawaii before her death and had worked as a teacher and was a retired church missionary.
A non-professional actor, Rivera won the part of Ned’s lola after sending an audition tape to producers of No Way Home, who had placed an ad on Facebook looking for a Filipina performer aged 50-90. In an interview with the Philippines’ Star FM Baguo, Rivera said that her daughter Angela Kelly had seen the Facebook ad and urged her to audition. Rivera said that she had quoted lines from The Grapes of Wrath in her audition tape.
Rivera only appears in one scene in No Way Home, but it has become iconic for various reasons. In the scene Rivera plays Ned’s (Jacob Batalon) grandma, and then Ned and MJ (Zendaya) realize they can use Doctor Strange’s ring to create portals. It is the scene where Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s versions of Spider-Man appear for the first time in Tom Holland’s dimension, also marking their first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The appearance of the actors was famously a big secret before release of the film and fans across the global went wild in cinemas when they make their entrance.
The scene was also notable for Filipino representation on screen, featuring two Filipino characters — Batalon is a Filipino-American born in Hawaii — including one who speaks significant parts of her dialogue in Tagalog, a first for a major Hollywood blockbuster. Rivera told Star FM Baguo that there was a “swelling in my heart,” when director Jon Watts told her she could speak in her native tongue to forcefully admonish the Spider-Men for messing up her kitchen.
In an interview with Hawaii Public Radio, Rivera’s daughter Angela Kelly spoke about her mother’s role in No Way Home and what it meant to the family. “It’s been an amazing adventure. To us, she’s just my mom. But to the rest of the world, she’s Ned’s Lola,” Kelly said. “It’s humbling really, because never before in cinematic history really has there been a place for the Filipino language and culture. They did a really good job with paying attention to the details of our culture.”
Rivera is survived by her husband, Alejandro Rivera; children, Carmela Jones (Jay), Paul Rivera (Leilani), Edwin Rivera, Angela Kelly (Jaime); 11 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
