Naya Rivera and Ryan Dorsey’s 10-Year-Old Son, Josey, Lands First Film Role
Josey Dorsey, the 10-year-old son of the late Glee actress Naya Rivera and actor Ryan Dorsey, is set to make his feature film debut in writer-director Evan Coury's The Burning Valley. According to IMDb, Ryan Dorsey has also been cast in the film, raising the possibility that father and son will share screen time in Josey's first big-screen role. The casting marks a notable milestone for the family, seven years after Rivera's death.
The Burning Valley, which is also Coury's directorial debut, follows a steelworker who loses his job after a mill shutdown and centres on his journey through his Rust Belt hometown. Filming began in August around Pennsylvania locations including Brackenridge and Arnold, close to where Coury grew up, and the cast also includes Tyler Miles, J.B. Brown and Whip Hubley among others. Josey previously appeared in a local theatre production of Seussical Jr. in West Virginia in 2024, where he and his father relocated from Los Angeles in 2023. Rivera died in a drowning accident at Lake Piru, California, in 2020, while boating with Josey, who was then four years old; she and Ryan Dorsey had married in 2014 before divorcing two years later.
- Josey Dorsey, 10, cast in his first film, The Burning Valley
- Father Ryan Dorsey also joins the cast, possibly sharing scenes
- Josey's mother, Naya Rivera, died in 2020 drowning accident
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Naya Rivera was best known for playing Santana Lopez on the television series Glee. She died in 2020 after an accidental drowning at Lake Piru in California while boating with her young son, Josey, who was four at the time. She had previously been married to actor Ryan Dorsey, with whom she had Josey; the couple divorced in 2016.
Josey, now 10, has grown up largely out of the spotlight, though he has taken some early steps into performing, including a role in a local stage production in West Virginia, where he and his father moved after leaving Los Angeles. His father, Ryan Dorsey, has continued to work as an actor since Rivera's death.
The story concerns Josey's move into film acting, a milestone that draws attention both because of his own emerging career and because of his family's history, given his mother's fame and the public nature of her death.