Hi Lauren! It’s so lovely to meet you, thank you so much for taking the time here. At ROSE & IVY, I love talking about tapping into others about what makes them thrive, but also about pivoting, taking chances, and seeing where it can take you. Prior to pursuing a career in acting, you were a teacher for ten years in New York. I’d love for you to walk me back to when you decided to make a big career change and how it felt—exciting, scary, maybe all of those things—to shift your life’s course.

It wasn’t an overnight decision I made, but a series of little doors that opened up after I took risks that changed the course of my life. I left teaching temporarily with the full intention of returning after having my second son. But a funny thing happened to me on my way "back to work.” By the time my second son was six months old, I was restless. I took on a little tutoring job that took me out of the house once a week for one hour, just a few blocks away at a coffeehouse. I tutored Kenny Leon, a Broadway director who was considering doing a revival called Children of a Lesser God. He wanted to learn ASL and more about Deaf culture.

For your readers who are unfamiliar with the play, Children of a Lesser God is a love story between James Leeds, a speech pathologist, and Sarah Norman, a Deaf cleaning woman. Their tumultuous relationship goes through challenges including audism, classism, and sexism. It all comes down to an explosive moment where Sarah uses her voice for the first time, and it is a terrible, terrible heart-wrenching moment.

They asked me to read for the role of Sarah to potential Broadway investors. It was not an audition, they clarified, it was just until they found a Deaf actress. It was not a commitment, so I said yes. I reasoned that it would be just a table read, nothing more, and besides I wasn’t an actor, I was a teacher on extended maternity leave. On the day of the table read, the room was hot and stuffy, filled with wealthy hearing people. Joshua Jackson sat next to me, reading for James. We were waiting for a few more people to arrive. Sick adrenaline began to course through my body. I was shaking from head to toe. So I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Sarah’s meltdown in the play was why I was in the bathroom. How did I end up here? I was expected to use my voice.

You see, at 13 I made the decision to “turn off my voice.” I used to speak using my voice but over the years, and despite speech therapy, I began to see that my ability to enunciate words was associated with my intelligence. I couldn’t express myself as fluidly and freely in speech as I could in sign language. It took a lot of courage to decide that I would claim control of my expression choice. I did not know what that path would look like but it was something that I could not not do. Looking back, I think that was damn radical for a 13-year-old girl who didn’t have many examples to follow.

I did not use my voice for 25 years. Nothing. Not one word spoken from my mouth, but plenty from my hands and my face, and that felt freeing and powerful. I forged my own path and made it work—until that day in the bathroom. I sat there, terrified, shaking, and shedding tears. Do I turn my voice back on? Is this a betrayal of myself, my values, my core beliefs? And for what? Those curious rich people? Show biz? A little voice inside myself (yes, I totally see the irony here) told me that I had to turn my voice back on to tell the story of Sarah Norman.

I stepped back into the room, read the script one page at a time. Then the moment arrived. I turned my voice back on, after 25 years. I don’t think I even screamed. I don’t know if everyone in the room heard me, but Joshua did. And those who needed to, did. I crumbled inside just like Sarah crumbled—I wasn’t acting—I was living my own truth, screaming “Speech! Speech! Is that it? Is that what you want?”

Speech wasn’t what I wanted, but what I wanted was to continue acting after my stint on Broadway ended. Broadway was bootcamp and a marathon. Hell, I think it was an Ironman competition! But it was amazing and I loved every moment of it and got a Tony nod. But when the play ended unexpectedly early, I didn’t know if I could actually continue acting. Here I was, a wife and mother of two, the owner of a multi-dwelling apartment building in Brooklyn. I had responsibilities. Could I try something as tentative as acting? Did Hollywood have space for someone like me, so, so wildly marginalized?

One of my colleagues advised me to “put balls to the walls” and just give acting a try for one year. Nothing happening? Go back to PS347. I took her advice and gave myself a year. Within that year I landed a recurring spot on The Walking Dead, did a couple guest star appearances on Legacies, and New Amsterdam. I also did a few days of shooting for Sound of Metal. Then TWD offered me a series regular role just when Marvel started hinting at the possibility of casting me for a new superhero film that turned out to be Eternals.

Not too bad for a teacher from PS347, right? The reason why I took that leap was because my husband and my family rallied for me. I have two deaf sons, and I knew that I wanted them to grow up in a society where Happy Meals held a deaf superhero figurine. I wanted my boys to understand that there are more ways than one to live and thrive, more than one way to be.

You might have already Alluded to this but What has your experience so far taught you about taking risks and stepping outside your comfort zone?

If an experience is uncomfortable for the right reasons—i.e. it is scary, I might fail, then I know that I just have to do it. Courage and growth are two things I aspire for daily—it takes courage to live the life I want, and growth is why I live. My mother, who is an artist, used to remind me while I was erasing away furiously on my drawing that “mistakes are fresh opportunities.” She encouraged me not to see my “mistakes” as something bad, but as an opportunity for something unexpected and possibly great.

**Since your career began on Broadway in Children Of A Lesser God and I read you also are a writer. Do you think those worlds would ever collide in a beautiful and meaningful way?**

Oh god I want that to happen! A psychic once told me, years ago before all of this happened, that I would write but not in the way I expected to. I majored in Creative Writing in college, and I have always wanted to publish a book, a YA book. Now I’m thinking, why stop there? There needs to be more content in Hollywood, if you know what I mean?

**You joined the mega hit series The Walking Dead in season nine as Connie, what has it been like working on the show?**

I was a huge fan of the show when it first started. So, it was positively surreal to join the cast. What I love about the show is its diverse representation—if the world went to shit, the survivors would probably look like an AA meeting. A wonderful array of people of different backgrounds coming together to survive. I was fresh off Broadway so I felt that TWD taught me a lot about television and how to work with the camera, as opposed to a live audience. Now that TWD is coming to an end, I feel like I’m graduating. I’m sorry that such a good thing has to end, but I am excited about what is coming up next.

With the final season coming up, can you share any details about the series, your character, and how you think fans will react?

TWD is a cultural phenomenon in my opinion. I see how it will always be a part of pop culture. I think that fans will find this final chapter pretty stressful and intense. I mean, we all care about these people in the story, right?! There are some painful moments, but I am confident that fans will love the humanity of it all.

You lit up the big screen playing Makkari in Eternals, and made history as the first Deaf superhero who is also Black and Mexican. The industry has made many changes over the past few years to be more inclusive about telling a range of different stories, filling the room with people from different ethnicities—Eternals was a great example of this!—but I know there is still so much work to be done especially when it comes to individuals with disabilities. Your role in that film but also the recent Oscar winning film CODA are two examples. It also impacts audiences around the world in a profound way, and can ignite empathy, inclusion, and understanding. How can your industry and others work to be a more inclusive and empowering place?

Thank you! I feel that Hollywood has an idea of how to portray diversity on screen, but the next step is to focus on what goes on off camera, behind the scenes. We need more inclusive practices in pre-production, among crew, and post-production. We need more higher-ups that mirror the diversity we see on screen now.

Congratulations on running the NYC marathon this year it’s such a feat! I always get choked up when the runners start going over the Verrazano Bridge. I definitely believe in the meditative powers of running. When did you discover it and how has it changed your life?

When my grandfather began running, I noticed a new ritual of his—he laid out his running clothes and shoes the night before and went to sleep earlier. I became curious about his morning runs—where did he go and what was it like? So I begged to join him on one of his runs. He warned me that I’d have to get up very early, before the sun even came up, to go with him, so I promised I would get up and go with him. And I did. I slept over and woke up the first time my grandfather tapped me on the shoulder. We drove to Lake Michigan in the dark. We walked for a bit and when I began to think that this was boring the sun did its glorious awakening and my grandfather nodded to me and we began jogging. My grandfather planted the running seed in me. I understood the quiet simple magic that comes with running. I understood immediately that running meant the opportunity to see things in a different light, be it in the color bath of the sun rising or a new perspective in my head.

You are running for PS347, where you taught ASL. Can you share more about the mission of the school?

I’m training for the NYC Marathon on November 6th to help raise funds for PS347, a public school in Manhattan that caters to Deaf, HOH and hearing children by offering bilingual education in both English and ASL. I taught at that school for almost 10 years. When I first joined, the bilingual and bicultural program was very new—PS347 was originally a school for the Deaf but as a last-ditch effort to prevent closing, the administration decided to try something unprecedented and risky, and that was to change the school for the deaf to a school for anyone who used or wanted to use ASL and English.

PS347 became PS347 the ASL and English School and opened itself to a wider community that included hearing children who wanted to learn sign language. The school also saw a large influx of hearing children of Deaf adults, an extraordinary group of children who are hearing, born to Deaf adults. In the Deaf community those children are called CODAs, short for Children of Deaf Adults. You may be familiar with this now because of the movie CODA that won Best Picture at the Oscars last spring!

By making this shift, the rich and thriving Deaf community at PS347 still had a school. This also meant the school was instrumental in spreading more awareness and advocacy for the signing community in New York City. But what were the risks? Dissidents said that mixing sign language and English in a classroom to teach general education was not possible. Scandalous. The other question was whether there were even enough Deaf kids and CODAs to balance the number of nonsigners coming into the classes? Wouldn’t someone miss out on communication if it’s in ASL or in spoken English? How would the new signers understand the Deaf teacher?

The solution was to pair up two teachers for each classroom—one that spoke English and one that was an ASL native. This ushered in a number of Deaf and CODA teachers, me included, from all over America. My first class had 12 kindergarteners and I co-taught with a wonderful man named Gary (who actually reminds me of the man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George). The students were exposed to two language models day in and day out, naturally, and consistently.

The ASL newbies picked up sign language quickly through immersion while they learned their sight words and numbers. They also found a new community that they were now part of. The CODAs also found their community—people who were “half hearing, half deaf” like them, and the Deaf children had the best of both worlds—they had a Deaf adult as a role model and the isolation that plagues many Deaf children was not the case because there were so many signing members of their community. Everybody won out. This setup proved that students could continue their academic development while learning one or two languages.

I left teaching when I had my first son. But I never left the PS347 community. I return from time to time, dropping in to do a read aloud. That first kindergarten class I taught? They came to see me perform Children of a Lesser God, fully grown. During all this time PS347 ASL and English school has survived but now they need support. So now I’m running for PS347 because that school taught me so much about the language of courage. The courage to take risks, the courage to find community, and the courage to communicate.

Do you have a personal motto or philosophy that guides your daily life?

This, too, shall pass.

My career and life has taken off in such a wild direction in the last few years. So staying grounded is very important to me—I have so many exhilarating moments and so many moments of disappointment, but I don’t allow those moments to claim me. Those moments are little steps in life—this moment, this step, too, shall pass. I don’t give any moment too much weight, but I do give each moment the respect it deserves. I feel like that is what keeps me grounded—the amazing moments, the terrible moments, the moments in between, they all count but they all too shall pass. That lets me keep on going without freaking out. I think that works for me as a runner too.

Is there anything else you are working on or have coming down the pipeline that you are excited about?

Yes! I’m currently producing a TV series with Ava DuVernay and Joshua Jackson that has been signed to a three-year script-to-series deal with Starz. It is currently in development and I am very excited about that!

In Conversation With Lauren Ridloff