Xochitl Gomez has landed her first voiceover role, joining The Cat in the Hat as Gabby, the older sister in the animated film. The 20-year-old actress said the casting came after a months-long wait, turning an audition into a new step in a career that has already moved from Marvel to Dancing With the Stars.
Gomez said she spent roughly three hours in a scratch session for the character before getting the part. She also said she was the first person cast in the family, because Gabby was treated as an important character and the rest of the roles would be built around that choice.
That matters because Gomez was already familiar to many viewers from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where she worked alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen, and from her 2023 win on season 32 of Dancing with the Stars with Val Chmerkovskiy. Bill Hader voices the title cat, giving the film another recognizable name as Gomez steps into a different kind of performance.
For Gomez, the role also fits a path she says she had wanted for some time. She said she had long hoped to do voice work, but figured it might never come together and that other performers could “have that.” She framed the new part as especially meaningful because it places a Latino family at the center of the story, something she was eager to support.
Even as her career has grown, Gomez said public attention has not always been easy to absorb. She said people in Kentucky recognize her from Dancing With the Stars and ask for pictures, but that exposure has also brought debate over her hair and skin tone. At the time, she was filming Bad Influence in Kentucky, where the show she won in 2023 was still drawing notice in everyday encounters.
Gomez grew up visiting sets with her mother, who worked as a set decorator, so the move into animation is not coming out of nowhere. What is new is the timing: after years of screen roles and a reality-TV victory, her first voiceover job gives her a different kind of visibility, and the next thing to watch is how much of Gabby the finished film lets audiences hear.
