Dora and the Lost City of Gold

The cartoon explorer, played live — and the role that turned a Nickelodeon actor into a worldwide name.

In Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019), Merced played the title character: Dora, the jungle-raised teenager from the animated series, transplanted into a live-action adventure. It was a risky piece of casting — a beloved children's character, played straight, in a film that had to work for both kids and their parents — and it worked. The film gave Merced her first worldwide fame and her first leading-role proof: she could carry a studio film on her own name.

Why it still matters

Everything after Dora traces back to it. The film demonstrated box-office carrying power, bilingual appeal (Dora's world is proudly bilingual, like Merced herself) and franchise comfort — the three things that explain why, six years later, she was trusted with Hawkgirl and Dina in the same year. It was also her last major credit under her birth name's shadow: weeks later, in October 2019, she announced the change to Merced.