Rico Madrigal

Rico Madrigal is a character in Disney's 2024 animated feature film Encanto 2: A New Generation. He is the oldest child, and only son of Mateo and Rosa Madrigal, and brother of Faye. Described as “smart but naive”, Rico's gift grants him incredible intelligence.

Background
Born into the Madrigal family, Rico is the oldest child of Mateo and Rosa, and older brother of Faye. Rico is also the cousin of Mirabel, Lorenzo, Cali, Marcos, José, Hazel and Paola. Rico lived in the nursery together with Paola, until she became five years old and moved out, leaving him alone. On the night of Rico's fifth birthday, he received the gift of incredible intelligence and he subsequently moved out of the nursery and into his own room.

Rico's gift often has him correcting the mistakes of his family, or other people within the village. He is often praised for his intelligence and skills, which he usually pins on his gift. Despite this, Rico also suffers from pressure and has insecurities like any of his relatives. Deep down, Rico has anxiety about the idea that he would be worthless to the family if he never had his gift. Sometimes, Rico feels as though he is not as smart as everyone else says he is, and imagines how his life would be if he was dumb instead.

Official Description
"Rico is the brains of the family. He knows a lot about science, math, and a whole lot more. But inside, he's still a naive kid."

"Rico is the smartest member of the family, all thanks to his gift. But even with his big brain, there are some things he still doesn't know or understand."

Development
As with the rest of the new Madrigal family, Rico was designed to reflect members from the original Madrigal family, while also appearing as a family member everyone can relate to. As in the final production, the studio created Rico from the start as the smart but still naive cousin. For his appearance, he was designed to appear as a stereotypical nerd, with his hair and glasses reflecting common nerd styles, which is only because Rico himself feels like that's what smart people look like.

Rico's voice actor, Antonio Raul Corbo, described his character: "The funny thing about Rico is that he's super smart, but also dumb. He wants to use his smarts for the family and the community, but only because he feels like he has to. Which, he kind of does, but at the same time, you kinda wish he would use them for his own personal things. But his fear of being worthless forces him to push forward."

Personality
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Physical Appearance
Rico is a 10-year-old boy with light skin, puffy brown hair, and light blue eyes. He wears a blue and yellow striped t-shirt with lightning bolt designs across it, blue shorts, and red sneakers. The lightning bolts on his shirt reference his gift of increased intelligence, as lightning is often used to show when somebody as a spark of intelligence, or is having a brainstorm. He also wears round brown glasses, but he does not need to wear them at all. He only wears them because he believes "That's what smart people do."

Powers and abilities
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Encanto 2: A New Generation
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Relationships
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Trivia
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