Lauren Ridloff, the Deaf actor who plays Makkari in Marvel's Eternals, explains how improvisation worked with her hearing co-stars on set. Ridloff is set to make history with her appearance as Makkari, the MCU's first Deaf superhero. While Makkari was not Deaf in the original Eternals comics, a new version of the character in Eternals: Celestia #1 has now made her Deafness canon.
Ridloff's breakthrough role as an actor can be traced back to her appearance in Broadway's Children of a Lesser God in 2018, but many fans will recognize her as Connie from The Walking Dead, first appearing in the show's ninth season. In Eternals, Ridloff stars alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kit Harrington, Salma Hayek, Don Lee, Kumail Nanjiani, Barry Keoghan, Brian Tyree Henry, and Lia McHugh, as a group of superhuman, immortal beings known as Eternals, who must reunite to battle an evil force of beings known as Deviants.
In a recent interview with THR, Ridloff goes into detail about how the presence of an ASL (American Sign Language) consultant on the Eternals impacted the set, particularly how it enabled the hearing actors to properly improvise during scenes involving sign language. According to Ridloff, she was able to focus on learning her own lines while the ASL consultant would support the other actors who wanted to sign their dialogue or have the ability to improvise during scenes. The consultant ultimately helped facilitate the creative energy of all the actors, allowing things to flow more smoothly with minimal communication barriers. Check out Ridloff's full comment below:
"[The ASL consultant] was very significant in providing support to the hearing actors who wanted to sign their dialogue or who wanted to have that chance to do improvisational things during the shoot. He was there to teach them how to adjust their signs for that, so it wasn’t my responsibility as a Deaf actor to teach other actors their lines. I just had to work on my lines. I just had to deal with my work. That was a valuable resource. I feel that Hollywood is just starting to learn about what an ASL consultant is — or even that title in itself is changing because I’m not sure if that encompasses all of what their job is as an ASL consultant."
Ridloff's comments, while not revealing specifics about what was improvised on set, shed more light on the experience of being a Deaf actor in Hollywood and the ways in which sets can adapt to improve the working conditions for such actors. Ridloff has previously explained how, on the Eternals set, in lieu of traditional audio cues, Angelia Jolie suggested using a laser pointer to signal Ridloff when to turn around during a scene when she was facing a wall. The presence of an ASL consultant seems to have been an invaluable resource for Ridloff, who shares that the role also involves watching scenes with the director to clarify when she has messed up her lines and ensuring that the director has a better grasp of the nuances of American Sign Language.
While cinema has come a long way in the last few decades in terms of representation, it seems that the authentic representation of Deaf characters and the availability of starring roles for Deaf actors can still be drastically improved. The MCU seems to be paving the way in this regard with their upcoming Hawkeye series set to also feature a Deaf actor in the role of Maya Lopez. Ridloff's comments suggest that the cast and crew got along well on the Eternals set and that all the actors were given the resources they needed to facilitate their strongest performances, something that will hopefully translate to the screen when Eternals releases later this year.
Source: THR
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