Lauren Ridloff

Inspiring Lauren Ridloff is currently best known for her portrayal of Connie in The Walking Dead, a role she has played since the long-running show’s ninth season in 2018. That same year, she scored another major breakthrough when she was nominated for several awards, including the Tony for Best Actress in a Play for her leading role in Children of a Lesser God on Broadway. Deaf since birth, she has also been cast as a deaf superhero in the 2021 Marvel film Eternals, starring alongside the likes of Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek.
Ridloff was born in Chicago and became interested in acting whilst at high school. She played Dorothy in a school production of The Wizard of Oz and became one of the first deaf cheerleaders to appear at an international competition. In the early 2000s, she won Miss Deaf America and focused on community work, teaching, and becoming a children’s author.
She happily did this for many years until 2016, when she gained public prominence after appearing in the lyric video for John Legend’s single ‘Love Me Now’. The following year, she was working as a consultant on a drama film called Wonderstruck and ended up being offered a small part. She came to her breakthrough theatre role by equal chance: Hired to teach Broadway director Kenny Leon American Sign Language, she ended up sitting in at a rehearsal of a play he’d yet to cast the female part of. She ended up being offered the role, wowing audiences and critics with her performance. Around the same time, she auditioned for one of her favourite shows, The Walking Dead, and got the part, capping an extraordinary and well-deserved rise to fame.