Laurence Walsh on ‘Ballroom’, Healing and Finally Directing Her First Feature
‘Life Doesn’t Always Have a Happy Ending, but Art Can’
For Laurence Walsh, Ballroom was twenty years in the making.
Not simply because getting an independent feature made is difficult — although it is — but because the emotional journey at the center of the film mirrors one Walsh knows intimately.
The writer, producer and director spent two decades overcoming depression. In Ballroom, she transforms that experience into the story of Violet, a dancer rebuilding her life after a car accident leaves her using a wheelchair. Dance becomes more than movement. It becomes a language for anger, grief, trust, intimacy and the difficult business of beginning again.
It also marks the realization of one of Walsh’s own long-held ambitions: directing a feature film.
That might sound surprising given her résumé. Over more than 25 years in Hollywood, Walsh has written across television and film, with credits and experience spanning CSI: Miami, NCIS, The Dresden Files, Against the Wall, Hallmark romances and action feature Bangkok Dog. She has worked with companies including Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, Universal, Lionsgate, Syfy and Lifetime, sold original television series and adapted Sherrilyn Kenyon’s The League for television.
But Ballroom is personal.
The film stars Madeline Delp as Violet and So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars alumnus Dmitry Chaplin as Petro Saenko. Its wheelchair ballroom sequences are not decorative interludes between scenes. They are the scenes: relationships shift, characters reveal themselves and Violet gradually discovers a new relationship with her own body.
For Walsh, that distinction matters.
Film Daily spoke with her about disability representation, depression, romance, the physical language of dance, what television taught her about storytelling and why making Ballroom changed the way she intends to make movies.
Laurence Walsh on Ballroom
Film Daily: What is Ballroom really about beneath the dancing?
Laurence Walsh: It took me twenty years to overcome depression. I used many healing techniques to clear that pain.
Ballroom follows Violet as she recovers from a car accident and a huge life challenge. The ways Violet heals are the ways I healed myself: feeling your feelings, expressing and releasing anger and sadness, learning to love yourself, learning to trust, accepting what is, taking responsibility for your part in an issue, letting go of the victim story, living your dreams and taking a chance on love.
Beneath the dancing is the opportunity to change your life if you don’t like where you are today.
Film Daily: Dance is an unusually physical way of telling an emotional story. What could you communicate through ballroom dance that dialogue alone couldn’t capture?
Walsh: I grew up dancing. Dancing itself helped me every day.
Trauma is remembered in the body; when we move the body, we are able to release stuck emotion. Wheelchair ballroom dancing is also an incredibly beautiful art form that not everyone knows about. The talent and strength of these performers is breathtaking.
Film Daily: How did you approach making the dance sequences advance the characters and story rather than simply functioning as spectacle?
Walsh: Dmitry Chaplin choreographed the movie and stars as Petro Saenko.
Violet starts to trust Petro as he trains her. A romance grows as they enjoy dancing together. Petro’s ex-girlfriend Emery pushes Petro in her dance sequences, trying to control him.
Each dance in Ballroom reveals character and moves the story forward.
Film Daily: Violet and Petro’s relationship sits at the heart of the film. What did you want audiences to understand about these two people through the way they move together?
Walsh: Petro is attracted to Violet’s sassiness and liveliness. After the accident, Violet doesn’t know if she will dance again. Petro shows Violet that it is still possible to dance — now in a wheelchair.
At first they are hesitant together, then playful. As the affection grows, they become in sync and dance as one.
Film Daily: Madeline Delp brings both performance and lived experience to the project. How did working with her shape the character and ultimately change the film?
Walsh: Mia Schaikewitz consulted on the script as it was being written and after it was completed, adding nuances and insights that only a person who uses a wheelchair knows.
Madeline Delp also gave several rounds of notes before we shot the movie. She brought a raw vulnerability to Violet, brilliantly exposing the depression and frustration boiling just beneath the surface of her relationship with her mother.
Additionally, Madeline helped with the physical-therapy blocking — we had a PT and nurse on set — and would let me know if a line of dialogue would affect her differently than the character was expressing.
Film Daily: Madeline worked with Jessica Richens as her body double. How did you design the dance material and filming process around the two performers while maintaining one coherent character on screen?
Walsh: Jessica was amazing at imitating Madeline’s movements and character choices. She would watch Madeline acting and then capture that same feeling when we shot from behind.
Hilary Ann Ryan choreographed the opening number and chose movements each performer could imitate. We shot wide shots of Jessica from behind with a strong spotlight and blended those with Madeline’s medium shots from the front, creating the effect of Violet walking and dancing at the beginning of the film.
Film Daily: Ballroom has been described as a social-impact dance drama. What does “social impact” mean to you in the context of this particular film?
Walsh: People in our focus group were blown away by the wheelchair ballroom dancing.
When asked whether the film changed their views about disability, people talked about seeing wheelchair dancing as elegant and possible, empathizing more with rebuilding after disability and gaining a greater appreciation of what wheelchair dancers can do.
Some were surprised to discover wheelchair dance events existed at all.
Film Daily: Disability representation can easily become sentimental or reductive on screen. What choices did you make to ensure the characters retained complexity, agency, sexuality, humor, and flaws?
Walsh: Violet is based on myself and growing up depressed. That makes her sarcastic, witty and full of sass.
Petro’s flaw is perfectionism. It’s something I’ve seen in many of my writing students. Perfectionism can be paralyzing in itself and lead someone to never try anything new or enjoy life.
I was grateful Madeline and Dmitry brought their natural charms to the roles to balance the flaws I put into their characters.
And I can’t help using humor in everything I write. I’ve found that when I write drama, people tend to laugh.
Film Daily: Was there a particular scene in Ballroom that proved much harder to write, direct, or produce than you originally expected?
Walsh: What I learned is that my writing style did not work particularly well with a low-budget movie. I like to write short, fast scenes – in and out. But shooting on a time squeeze, we had to do around fourteen setups and scenes per day. My DP is meticulous with his vision and lighting, so my short scenes made the days difficult.
For the next one, I’ll write longer scenes and use fewer locations.
Film Daily: Conversely, was there a moment during production when you saw something happening in front of the camera and realized the film was working exactly as you had hoped?
Walsh: Kate Orsini, who plays Janet Galvert, brings the mom’s depression, and anxiety issues to life. Watching her try to control Violet, her daughter, felt very real.
Petro’s birthday dance circle was also incredibly fun. He dances with every woman in the room and then turns his attention to Violet. Just as they lock eyes, the song sings, “You’ve got a pair of eyes, just like old Svengali.”
It feels perfect for their meet-cute.
Film Daily: What did directing Ballroom teach you that 25 years of writing television and features had not?
Walsh: John Woo taught me a lot about the importance of transitions, but I still wasn’t embodying how crucial they are.
Establishing locations, introducing characters at those locations and having something to cut off of became vital.
Film Daily: The film now has an unusually broad distribution footprint — from Amazon, Apple TV and YouTube Movies to DISH, Sling, libraries, universities, hospitals, hotels and cruise ships. How important was it to you that Ballroom could reach audiences outside the traditional theatrical ecosystem?
Walsh: I’m really hoping word of mouth and the disability and mental-health communities will help people find the film.
We don’t have the marketing budget of big movies, so we need more venues to give people the chance to find it, see it and hopefully be uplifted by it.
Film Daily: Do you think a film like Ballroom can actually benefit from the fragmentation of modern distribution, because there are now so many different ways for an audience to discover it?
Walsh: I am about to learn this first hand, then I will let you know.
From CSI: Miami to Hallmark — and the rules Walsh learned along the way
Ballroom may be intensely personal, but Walsh made it after decades spent learning the machinery of commercial storytelling.
That experience gave her something independent filmmakers sometimes resist: a belief in structure.
Film Daily: You began your television career writing shows including CSI: Miami and later worked on NCIS, The Dresden Files and Against the Wall. What did writing within those very disciplined television formats teach you about storytelling?
Walsh: American film and television has a formula. Within that formula, there is endless creativity.
For me, that means an active and compelling protagonist with flaws who drives the story forward, a powerful theme, consistent tone, escalating stakes and a character either overcoming their core wound or failing to overcome it.
With every movie, the emotion you put into the characters is the emotion the audience takes away.
Film Daily: You’ve subsequently written everything from Hallmark romance to science fiction, thrillers and action. What remains consistent in a Laurence Walsh story regardless of genre?
Walsh: I could never stick to one genre as they are all so much fun. What is consistent in my writing across genres is a character driven story, with tight pacing that tells a compelling story about human hardship and growth. I’m passionate about characters who change and heal by overcoming their wounds and misbeliefs to live happier lives.
Film Daily: Your Hallmark films Matching Hearts and With Love, Christmas deal very directly with love and human connection. What fascinates you about romance as a storytelling engine?
Walsh: Being rejected, feeling disrespected, being triggered, fearing intimacy, learning to trust, opening yourself to love and falling in love are universal rites of passage.
Millions of people can identify with those challenges. I like romance because it teaches each person — or character — about themselves.
Film Daily: After working with companies including Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, Universal, Lionsgate, Syfy, and Lifetime, what have you learned about protecting the emotional core of a story while navigating the commercial realities of Hollywood?
Walsh: There are always 100 ways to address a studio or network note.
You need to find the thing that solves the issue while staying true to what’s important in your film. Learning to compromise is an essential quality for success in Hollywood — and in life.
Film Daily: Bangkok Dog has reached more than 3.5 million views. What did that film teach you about the increasingly unpredictable ways audiences discover independent movies?
Walsh: I’m very grateful Bangkok Dog found its audience. DY Sao puts everything into his acting and martial arts.
With Ballroom, I made the movie for people dealing with disability and mental-health issues to see what may be possible in healing and perhaps take some steps toward happiness.
Film Daily: You adapted Sherrilyn Kenyon’s bestselling The League for television. What is the hardest part of taking a world that already exists vividly in readers’ imaginations and translating it for the screen?
Walsh: Whenever I adapt books, I stay true to the author’s intention and vision. I don’t want to alienate fans by thinking I know better.
What’s challenging is continuing the story past where the author has written. The pilot has to set up potentially a hundred episodes, so that long arc has to match the world and characters Sherrilyn created.
Film Daily: You’ve also sold two original television series. After so many years inside the industry, what separates an interesting idea from a concept that can genuinely sustain a television series?
Walsh: Relevance.
You need to tap into your life experience and make it universal. What does the world need to see now? How can I use my story to enlighten others?
Film Daily: You have taught screenwriting since 2007. Has teaching other writers changed the way you diagnose problems in your own scripts?
Walsh: When I write, I keep in mind everything I teach, but I try to let the descriptions and dialogue “download” from source. God.
Then I hand my scripts to other people to find out whether I’ve conveyed the story and feelings I was trying to get across. You can’t know whether you are communicating those feelings and themes in your head to someone else until you get feedback.
Film Daily: Hollywood has transformed enormously during your career — from network television and physical media through streaming and today’s multiplatform distribution landscape. What changes have genuinely made life better for filmmakers, and what has been lost?
Walsh: I think filmmaking is more egalitarian and less elitist now. More people get to express their creativity, even if it is mostly seen by niche audiences.
There are paths for people to express themselves through radio, podcasts, micro-dramas, follow docs, influencing and shorts.
But because the commerce has changed, it is also less clear how to make a living creating the content you love.
Film Daily: After more than 25 years of writing, producing, directing, and teaching, what still scares you creatively — and what still makes you excited enough to begin with a blank page?
Walsh: The only thing that scares me about writing is not having time to write. As a mom, I need to balance my schedule so I can spend valuable time with my family.
I was pregnant with my baby when we shot the film and nursing her while I edited it. My other daughter appears in the movie.
Writing is the best job in the world. You get to take all of your life issues, turn them into stories and resolve them.
Life doesn’t always have a happy ending, but art can.
Film Daily: When someone finishes watching Ballroom, what do you hope stays with them after the credits have ended?
Walsh: I hope the viewer feels excited about their dreams and starts to think, “How can I make my dream come true?”
Violet makes her dreams come true.
And through Ballroom, I made my twenty-year-old dream of directing a feature come true.
A twenty-year dream
That may ultimately be the most revealing thing about Ballroom.
Walsh has constructed a film around a woman confronting the possibility that the life she imagined for herself has disappeared — only to discover that the dream itself does not have to disappear with it.
That idea is mirrored in the circumstances of the film’s creation: Violet dreams of becoming a professional dancer: a goal she pursues after her accident despite the many obstacles in her way. Walsh completes her dream of directing a feature: a dream she held since childhood.
Ballroom therefore makes its argument twice: once through Violet and once through the filmmaker who put her on screen.
The route to the thing you wanted may change completely.
That does not necessarily mean you stop dancing.
Dance along
Ballroom is available digitally through Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play and YouTube Movies, alongside cable, satellite and non-theatrical distribution.
