Josey previously made his stage acting debut at age 8 in a West Virginia theater production of ‘Seussical Jr.’ in 2024
Credit: Gregg DeGuire/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Naya Rivera’s son, Josey Dorsey, is set to make his screen acting debut in the feature film The Burning Valley
- The 10-year-old will star alongside his dad, actor Ryan Dorsey, in Evan Coury’s directorial debut, which recently began filming in Pennsylvania
- News of Josey’s first movie acting role comes six years after Rivera’s tragic 2020 death
Naya Rivera and Ryan Dorsey’s son is following in his parents’ footsteps.
The pair’s son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, has booked his first on-screen role, according to an IMDb page for the 10-year-old. He is set to star in The Burning Valley, a new feature film from writer-director Evan Coury.
In his movie debut, Josey will appear in a role currently listed as “Son” on IMDb, while Ryan is set to portray a character called “Father.” An official synopsis is not yet available on the website, though Coury said the film is about deindustrialization in an interview with The Tribune-Review, a newspaper based in Pennsylvania, where the movie began filming earlier in August.
“The movie is about a steelworker who loses his job when the mill announces a shutdown,” Coury told the outlet. “It sets him on a journey as he wanders through his Rust Belt town.”
Credit: Ryan Dorsey/Instagram
The Burning Valley is Coury’s directorial debut following a couple of acting roles. Previously, he starred in the 2015 short film Adopted and the Sadie Sink-led Dear Zoe, which was released in 2022, per IMDb.
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The first-time director — who grew up in New Kensington, Pa., a city near Brackenridge and Arnold, where the feature is shooting — also described the movie to The Tribune-Review as both small and poetic. “My hope is to encapsulate the history of our region through one guy’s personal experience,” Coury said.
The rest of the cast of The Burning Valley, per IMDb, includes Tyler Miles, JB Brown, Joseph Ducar, Whip Hubley, Patrick Jordan, Sam Lothard, Joseph Mazza and Sheila McKenna.
Before booking his first film role, Josey made his acting debut at age 8 in a theater production of Seussical Jr. in his dad’s home state of West Virginia in 2024, NBC affiliate KTVB reported at the time. (The father-son duo relocated from Los Angeles to the state in 2023, PEOPLE previously reported.)
Ryan, meanwhile, is known for his roles in Yellowstone, Ray Donovan, Justified and, most recently, Palm Royale.
Credit: Ryan Dorsey Instagram
News of Josey’s casting in The Burning Valley comes six years after the death of his mom, Rivera, on July 8, 2020, at age 33. Josey and the Glee star had been swimming off a rental boat in Lake Piru in Ventura County, Calif., when she got into difficulty and drowned.
Rivera and Ryan tied the knot in July 2014, three months after she ended her engagement to rapper Big Sean. The pair were married for two years before Rivera filed for divorce in 2016, when Josey was 14 months old.
Last year, in his first sit-down interview since Rivera’s death, Ryan told PEOPLE that while there are difficult moments, Josey is “such a happy kid.”
“He wakes up happy, all energy,” he shared at the time. “I’m trying to be the best parent that I can be and raise a good little man. He gives me a reason to keep going with my life.”
Of Josey witnessing his mom’s death, Ryan told PEOPLE, “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”
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