{"id":187447,"date":"2025-09-28T11:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/187447\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T11:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T11:35:13","slug":"lauren-weedman-talks-acting-during-her-bells-palsy-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/187447\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Weedman Talks Acting During Her “Bell’s Palsy Era”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFollowing years as a recognizable character actress, Lauren Weedman<\/a> had quite the trying year for her onscreen career.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter appearing in recent episodes of Hacks<\/a> and Abbott Elementary<\/a>, the actress revealed that she developed Bell\u2019s palsy in August 2024, temporarily paralyzing her face while filming Netflix<\/a>\u2018s Sirens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe idea of sitting out and waiting for it to get better just was not an option,\u201d Weedman told Huffington Post<\/a> of the condition, which resulted in the right side of her face completely freezing, the inability to align her lips or close her right eye, headaches and general malaise.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeedman added, \u201cI wanted to talk to [the Sirens team] about it as soon as I could so I wouldn\u2019t be stressed the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSirens creator Molly Smith Metzler<\/a> explained, \u201cAt that point, I had fallen in love with Lauren like everyone else had. I just felt awful that she was going through something like that. \u2026 We didn\u2019t even wanna conceive of the show without her in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrine Oldford, Felix Solis, Lauren Weedman and Patrick Voss Davis in \u2018Siren\u2019 (Netflix\/Courtesy Everett Collection)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Molly] was so kind \u2026 But it was really hard for me to think that I mattered,\u201d said Weedman. \u201cYou don\u2019t make a big thing out of being hurt or sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeedman suggested writing the condition into her character\u2019s storyline, which Metzler agreed to, appreciating that the actress was \u201cso, so game,\u201d adding: \u201cIt\u2019s such a terrific character trait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPlaying private chef Patrice during the summer season in a wealthy seaside enclave, the character mentions in one episode, \u201cEvery summer, this happens; the stress of this job, my Bell\u2019s palsy is back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf it serves the character, I don\u2019t care if I look heavy or fat or bad or whatever. But this one was a new level of [vanity],\u201d said Weedman of watching her performance back on the monitors.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLauren Weedman on \u2018Abbott Elementary\u2019 (Gilles Mingasson\/ABC\/Disney\/Courtesy Everett Collection)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile still recovering from the condition, Weedman went on to reprise her roles as Kristin Marie Schemmenti on Abbott Elementary, and Las Vegas Mayor Jo Pezzimenti on Hacks.<\/p>\n

\n\tHacks creator and showrunner Lucia Aniello<\/a> noted that when Weedman \u201csaid she wanted to shoot, we just went with it!\u201d Abbott creator\/star Quinta Brunson<\/a> said she was \u201creally excited about the opportunity\u201d to keep working with Weedman, adding: \u201cThe way I look at it, that is what normalizes any form of otherness. Her dealing with it falls in line with who [Lauren] is. She just rolls with the punches and does her job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeedman said she\u2019s \u201cso happy\u201d she was able to continued working, noting that her teen son reminded her, \u201cMom, it\u2019s no big deal. This is your Bell\u2019s palsy era, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following years as a recognizable character actress, Lauren Weedman had quite the trying year for her onscreen career.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[13279,236,88,1065,97,109250,65427],"class_list":["post-187447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-abbott-elementary","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-hacks","tag-health","tag-lauren-weedman","tag-sirens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}