Lauren Ridloff (The Walking Dead) will soon make her MCU debut as the super-fast Makkari in Marvel's Eternals, and the actress has now spoken about the challenges and frustrations she experienced while filming her scenes as a deaf person.
During an interview with The NY Times, Ridloff explained the difficulties that came with shooting scenes in which she found herself blocked off from her castmates, as she was unable to hear her dialogue cues. As it turns out, Angelina Jolie (Thena) was the one who suggested an ingenious solution.
“In some scenes, I had to face a wall. As a deaf person, how do you cue me? At one point, I was sharing my frustration with Angelina Jolie. And she immediately made a suggestion: why don’t we use a laser pen that special effects can easily erase?”
"It was an 'Aha, wow' moment," she continued. "Whenever I’m looking at a wall, the interpreters would use a laser pen to make a circle on the wall — 'rolling, rolling, rolling' — and once it went away that meant, 'Action!'"
Ridloff went on to express what it means for her to be able to bring a deaf superhero to the screen: "My two boys, who are also deaf, will grow up in a world where there are superheroes who are deaf… it means they’ll be able to dream a bit more wildly."
Check out a new still featuring Makkari below.
Eternals features an exciting new team of Super Heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years. Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, an unexpected tragedy forces them out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, The Deviants.
The next Phase 4 adventure is set to hit theaters on November 4.