An actress before her injury and returning to acting after her injury, Jo-Marie Lawrence truly showcases what people with disabilities are capable of in the entertainment industry. After her injury, she has stayed true to her passion, and it’s proven to be quite successful. But getting there wasn’t easy.
Depression and the worry if she could even return plagued her mind, but she forged ahead nonetheless. Read on for a story of dedication to a craft and how you can achieve great things in spite of living through one of the most difficult life changes out there.
Injury Story
Acting is a passion that draws you in, and that was the case for Jo-Marie, who after growing up in the Bay Area of California (after she was born in the UK), she graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a degree in Communications. After graduating, she went on to pursue acting. In 2015 she starred in Lovestruck, a short/comedy where she played a soccer player and in 2016, she starred in the short, Amnesia, which was a thriller. She also took acting classes, as well as worked other jobs post-graduation. “I worked for Adobe, I worked in restaurants and bars, and I nannied.”
Everything changed in Jo-Marie’s life in 2019, when another love of hers, snowboarding, caused a severe spinal cord injury. “I was injured December 24, 2018 in Whistler, Canada. I was snowboarding with my family and unfortunately jumped into some rocks,” says Jo-Marie, who sustained a C4 incomplete injury. Fortunately, she was able to regain some leg movement AND can stand and take a few steps, but Jo-Marie experienced deep sorrow after her injury.
“My mental health was pretty bad after the first one to two years. It was a scary time of the unknown and a huge life change. I went from living completely independently to living under my parents roof dependently. It was a very lonely time for me. I eventually started to take acting classes again and got back into what made me happy. I got on antidepressants and spoke with a therapist weekly. Gratitude will take you a long way.”
Finding Work
Breaking into the acting world can be a slow burn. In Jo-Marie’s case, going back to acting was intimidating, but she didn’t let that stop her. “An old acting teacher reached out to me and because of Covid his classes were going online. I started to get back to what my goals were before my injury even if they looked a little different. There was a bit of a hesitation at first because I had not seen many if any wheelchair actresses. I really had no idea what that would look like for me or if it would be possible.”
Her first step was to find an agency to represent her as an actress with a spinal cord injury. Fortunately, this was relatively easy due to her previous history. “Because I had been pursuing acting before my accident, I had made a lot of connections and received referrals,” says Jo-Marie. “I auditioned for an agency in San Francisco and worked with them and built up a lot of credits and then met some agents in Los Angeles through an old classmate.”
And since re-entering the world of acting, Jo-Marie has booked a number of jobs, including several commercials. In 2023, she was in a Target commercial promoting their Circle app, and in 2024 she was part of a CBS commercial that promoted the Super Bowl.
This year, she co-starred in the film, The Invalids, which was made for the Disability Film Challenge. She played “Mira,” a woman who lives in a dystopian future where disability is exploited for sport. She was also in an animated short where she was a producer as well, in Take Care, which was screened at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. This movie follows a woman who hires a caregiver who eventually becomes a friend.
As for what Jo-Marie is most proud of since her accident, Jo-Marie says it is hard to choose. “I’m proud of all of them,” she says. “Target was a pretty cool commercial and I recently worked on a TV show called Countdown which was a huge milestone for me. Make sure to catch me in the first episode.” Countdown is on Amazon Prime and follows a LAPD officer who joins a secret task force, and ends up saving millions of lives.
Work Accommodations
For actors with mobility challenges, they need to make sure the set is accessible. For Jo-Marie, this accommodation is key. “I always request accessibility when it comes to bathrooms, wardrobe, and on set in general,” says Jo-Marie, who adds that working can be tough on her body. “A lot of the time I’m the first wheelchair-user that someone on set has worked with so it’s a lot of learning together sometimes. My agents are great advocates in the request of any access needs I have.”
Jo-Marie and others like her are slowly making the entertainment industry more inclusive, and hopefully more welcoming for future actors with disabilities. She however doesn’t hold any punches about the overall competitive nature of the industry for anyone with mobility challenges hoping to become an actor. “I would say it’s a very tough industry, but if you love it go for it. To start, I would say get in classes, train, train, train and make connections.”
Looking ahead, Jo-Marie is eager to add more projects to her resume. “I would love to continue to work commercially and hopefully book some more TV shows. I would love to stay creative in any way that I can. I also do a bit of social media on the side so I hope I can continue to do that alongside acting.” Jo-Marie is a successful disability content creator with over 39.6k followers on TikTok.
Adjusting to life over the last seven years may have been difficult for Jo-Marie, as she was an active person before her injury, but she says she’s found new ways to live and thrive. “I love to go to the beach, the movies, find new coffee shops, go thrifting and swimming.” She’s also a fan of traveling; sometimes with her partner, whom she started dating post-injury. “I did start dating after my injury which was intimidating,” says Jo-Marie, “but I’m very grateful I’ve met someone super special and we’ve been dating for about a year now.”
With more exciting TBA projects underway, we highly recommend following Jo-Marie to keep up-to-date on her upcoming projects.
— Jo-Marie’s site: https://www.jomarielawrence.com/
— Follow her on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jomarielawrence/
— Follow her on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jomariemlawrence