Lauren Ridloff
Lauren began her meteoric rise as an actor just five years ago. Prior to that, she won the title of Miss Deaf America and was a kindergarten teacher in Manhattan for a decade. After leaving that job totake care of her two young children, she was hired in 2016 to tutor director Kenny Leon in American Sign Language as he readied the Broadway revival of Children of A Lesser God. After working together for months, Kenny and the producers concluded that Lauren was the ideal and only choice for the lead. She pulled it off with resounding success, including multiple rave reviews from the New York Times and a Tony nomination. She soon became a series regular on the long running AMC series, The Walking Dead. She then became the first Deaf superhero opposite Angelina Jolie and Kumail Nanjani in Marvel's worldwide hit, Eternals. Lauren received a 2020 BAFTA Breakthrough award recognizing the most promising stars of film and television.