Happy Birthday Lauren Ridloff!

Deaf actress Lauren Ridloff was born in April 6, 1978.

image from New. York Times video (see below)

She first came to national attention with her role of Connie on the TV series The Walking Dead. Ridloff was crowned Miss Deaf America in 2000 and nominated several awards for her leading role in the Broadway play Children of a Lesser God. In 2021, she became Marvel’s first deaf superhero in the movie Eternals. She is mother to two young children who are also deaf. They live in Atlanta with her husband, Douglas Ridloff, a deaf artist and performer, though Ridloff was born and raised in Chicago. She learned American Sign Language as a child and attended Catholic school with hearing children. She later studied education at Hunter College and became a kindergarten teacher.

She told the New York Times:

"Growing up, I didn’t dream about becoming an actor. I didn’t see myself on the screen. As a little girl, I thought I was one of only a few deaf people walking on this Earth. Now, as an adult, I’m aware there are at least 466 million deaf people and hard-of-hearing people out there. I’m not the only one. And that’s what it means to have a deaf superhero — a lot more people will see a lot more possibility."

Read the article here.

Below is a video interview of Ridloff.