What to Know About the Godzilla vs. Kong Star

Who Was Kaylee Hottle?

Kaylee was an actress who famously played Jia in both Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.

“After I watched the movie, I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to make such a big impact,'” she said through an ASL interpreter on WABC-TV in 2024. “And I was so excited. She’s a young deaf girl, just like many others out there. And this journey that she’s going on is just going to be so amazing.”

And Kaylee, whom the outlet noted came from an all-deaf family spanning four generations, reflected on the importance of representation.

“Representation means to me, it shows where I come from and who I represent and what I’m representing for,” she continued. “Jia in the movie, she represents bravery. And I represent the Deaf community. And I also represent Asian Americans as well. So we have everything we need. And so I truly care so much about representation.”

Beyond her work onscreen and frequent appearances at conventions, Kaylee was a senior and student athlete at the Texas School for the Deaf, where she competed in basketball, swimming as well as track and field. (She was even named a Student-Athlete of the Month during the 2024-2025 season). 

“Kaylee was an amazing person,” Japan’s Legends, a talent agency for stars of kaiju genre movies and TV shows that Kaylee often tagged on social media, wrote in a July 21 Facebook tribute. “Beyond her acting, she was an amazing athlete and an outstanding academic. She had so much potential and could have been anything she set her mind to. The world is a much sadder place without her.”