The Untold Truth Of The Umbrella Academy's Emmy Raver-Lampman
Unless you are a major Broadway fan, most people know actress Emmy Raver-Lampman from her role as Allison Hargreeves in "The Umbrella Academy," a series on Netflix centered around a family of superpowered siblings trying to save the world. "The Umbrella Academy," which is based on a graphic novel series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, has been extremely successful for Netflix, with two seasons out and a third on the way.
Raver-Lampman's character is one of seven siblings in the Hargreeves family. When a bunch of babies are randomly and inexplicably born on the same day to women who weren't pregnant the day before, an eccentric, rich business man adopts seven of them to train as his own superhero team. Allison is also known as Number 3, and she has the ability to control people and reality with her words. Throughout the first two seasons, Allison has grown confident in her beliefs and her ability to be successful without her influencing power, and she has an intense love for her family, despite their many problems.
Although her turn on "The Umbrella Academy" is certainly a huge accomplishment for Raver-Lampman, that's not all there is to the actress, that's for sure. With an interesting upbringing and an already extremely successful career, here are a few things about Raver-Lampman that you might not know.
She traveled to over 50 countries while growing up
Raver-Lampman was raised by her father, Greg Lampman, who is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and professor, and her mother, Sharon Raver-Lampman, who is a professor and specialist of communication disorders and special education at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Because of her field of study, Raver-Lampman's mother had reason to travel a lot when her daughter was young, and so the whole family would move around the world for her work.
A few of Raver-Lampman's mother's astounding accomplishments include working as a volunteer for the Peace Corps in Ecuador to teach "orientation and mobility to children and adults with blindness," and working in Jamaica to establish "the country's first preschool program for children with special needs” (Old Dominion University). A few of the countries where Raver-Lampman lived or traveled to in her youth as a result of her mother's work include Ukraine, India, Japan, Egypt, England, Czech Republic, and many more.
Being as well-traveled as Raver-Lampman is, along with having parents doing such inspiring work, the actress has chosen to continue to travel in her adulthood, both for pleasure and volunteer work. According to an interview with the Los Angeles Times, a couple of vacations from the past five years or so include "Thailand and a stint in Madagascar as a volunteer building toilets." Instilling in their daughter a compassion and appreciation for other communities and culture, it's no surprise that Raver-Lampman chose to pursue such an empathic, creative career like acting and singing.
She started acting professionally while finishing her college degree
Raver-Lampman's love and talent for music and performing was clear at a young age, and so her parents decided to enroll her in the Governor's School for the Arts located in Norfolk, Virginia, her hometown. A high school that focuses on musical and theatrical studies, GSArts frequently sends students on to Broadway and beyond. Raver-Lampman intended to follow her dreams after high school, and she was accepted early to the prestigious Marymount Manhattan College in NYC.
She didn't even finish her degree before starting her professional career (though she would complete the degree and graduate later on), getting her first job in "Children of Eden" during her sophomore year, which performed at the Astoria Performing Arts Center. Through "Children of Eden," Raver-Lampman met Christine O'Grady, a choreographer who was working on both this play and the Tony-winning revival of "Hair." She encouraged Raver-Lampman to audition for the upcoming "Hair" tour, and she did, getting cast as part of the ensemble and an understudy for both Dionne and Abraham Lincoln (LA Times).
Raver-Lampman left school to tour for 16 months while taking remote classes. When "Hair" came back to NYC for a run on Broadway, the actress made her official Broadway debut in the show and got her Equity card, which is a huge milestone for theater actors.
She worked very hard to earn a starring role as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton
Raver-Lampman's journey with the Tony Award-winning musical "Hamilton" had a similar trajectory to stardom and success. In 2015, the actress was coming off of a tour with "Wicked" as the standby for Elphaba, and she needed another job. Her agent asked her if she would like to audition for a show called "Hamilton" that she knew nothing about. Taking a shot in the dark, Raver-Lampman went for it and got the job, becoming a part of the ensemble in the original Broadway cast for the musical that became a cultural phenomenon.
While working as part of the ensemble, Raver-Lampman also pulled triple duty as an understudy for all three lead female characters — Angelica, Eliza, and the combined role of Peggy and Maria Reynolds. The actress was in "Hamilton" for a little less than a year, making the daunting decision to leave the show to originate the role of Pearl Krabs in the critically acclaimed musical "Spongebob Squarepants," which would go on to be nominated for 12 Tony Awards.
But her journey with "Hamilton" wasn't done yet. In the fall of 2016, she rejoined the musical as an ensemble member of the Chicago production, before getting a call from her agent about the national tour, which was currently in the process of casting. She was offered the part of Angelica, and she took it, playing the iconic role for 10 months in 2017 (LA Times).
Raver-Lampman is in a serious relationship with Hamilton's Daveed Diggs
Although they've kept their relationship relatively secret and subdued over the years, it's been officially confirmed that Raver-Lampman and Daveed Diggs, the Tony Award-winning actor who originated the role of Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson in "Hamilton," are currently in a serious relationship. Many of you might also know Diggs from his role as Andre Layton in the TNT television adaptation of "Snowpiercer," or as writer, producer, and star in the critically acclaimed 2018 film "Blindspotting."
The couple has successfully kept their romance out of the public eye for at least two years, only opening up for Architectural Digest in March 2021 to show off their beautiful home together. Filled with colorful furniture, lots of windows, a relaxing pool, and their dog, Luna, Raver-Lampman and Diggs appear to be quite happy and in love. It certainly seems like "Hamilton" was the place to find love in 2015 and beyond, as their musical costars Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones also met through the show, and are currently engaged to be married (Harper's Bazaar). Are Raver-Lampman and Diggs next?
The Umbrella Academy is her first major television role
Although she had a couple of small roles on television shows like "A Million Little Things" and "Jane the Virgin," Netflix's "The Umbrella Academy" is Raver-Lampman's first major acting role on television. After starring in "Hamilton" as Angelica acting in eight shows a week for a series of months, Raver-Lampman was eager for a break from theater, and soon enough she found a new and exciting opportunity when her agent gave her the pilot script for "The Umbrella Academy." Thinking that nothing would come of it, Raver-Lampman recorded an audition tape and sent it in, happy to simply have the practice. But a few months later, she got a call asking her to come in for a screen test, and the part of Allison was hers.
In an interview with Refinery29, Raver-Lampman spoke about her character Allison's arc in Season 2 of "The Umbrella Academy," which throws the Hargreeves family right in the middle of the 1960s in the US, segregation and all. Allison learns that she can't rely on her power to make things okay, and "being in the heart of movement forces her to see how just wishing something like systemic racism away isn't worth risking the important activist work that she's become part of, or the lives of the people she comes to love in the process." In further comments, Raver-Lampman reflected on what life was like for people of color in the '60s, and shared how unfortunately, she can easily understand how they felt then, as "we're also living in the afterlife of it right now. I don't need to research what it feels like to be oppressed and discriminated against because it's still happening. That's still our reality."
The actress starred in the original musical production of Gun and Powder
In 2020, Raver-Lampman made her long-awaited return to Broadway, teaming up with her old costar, Solea Pfeiffer, who played the Eliza to Raver Lampman's Angelica on the "Hamilton" tour. The two reunited as the Clarke sisters, Mary (Pfeiffer) and Martha (Raver-Lampman), in the production of a new musical, "Gun & Powder" (Playbill). With a book and lyrics by Angelica Chéri and music by Ross Baum, "Gun & Powder" is based on the true story of African-American twins Mary and Martha Clarke, who successfully pass themselves off as white in order to find the funds to settle their mother's sharecropper debt, no matter what it takes. Although the pair are originally thick as thieves, the love of two vastly different men threatens to shatter their deep sisterly bond.
The play ran from January 28, 2020 to February 23, 2020 at the MAX Theatre located in Arlington, Virginia, ending just in the nick of time before everything started shutting down due to COVID-19. A review of the musical from Broadway World opens with extreme praise, with Elliot Lanes writing, "As a reviewer you generally find something wrong with a production no matter how much you enjoy it. Signature Theatre's latest World Premiere Musical Gun & Powder is a rare breed of show because it is literally a perfect theatrical experience." Although the show was hindered by the pandemic and unable to expand for further showings, it's obvious that Raver-Lampman is still a huge talent for Broadway, and has a lot more to show us in the future.
Raver-Lampman is taking over the voice role of Molly Tillerman in Central Park
While 2021 has Raver-Lampman filming the highly anticipated third season of "The Umbrella Academy," she is also making her debut in "Central Park," the Apple TV+ adult animated series created by Nora Smith, Josh Gad, and Loren Bouchard, who is also the creator of "Bob's Burgers." The show, which premiered its first season in May 2020, has been very successful, with Season 2 premiering in late June 2021 and a Season 3 already confirmed. In June 2020, there was a controversy and casting change in response to ongoing conversations about accurate representation in the media, which grew in prominence in the aftermath of George Floyd's death. Kristen Bell announced that she would be stepping away from her role as Molly Tillerman, the biracial protagonist of "Central Park" (Deadline). Bell made a statement on Instagram apologizing for her past choice to voice the character, calling it "a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege."
The "Central Park" team moved forward with finding a new voice actress, and Raver-Lampman was the perfect fit. Biracial herself, Raver-Lampman can definitely relate to her character Molly's experiences, bringing authenticity to the specific struggles depicted in the series based on Molly's background. Speaking with Observer about the change, Raver-Lampman shared that through "having a biracial woman voicing a biracial character, we can actually have her talk about the struggles of finding the right hair product when you're half white and half Black," and similar experiences. It brings new possibilities to where the show can go, and provides biracial kids and young adults everywhere with the kind of representation that Raver-Lampman didn't have — but should've — in her own childhood.