By Logan Lehmann
A former Prince Albert police officer has found success in the spotlight after spending two decades as a member of the force.
Retired Const. Clint Rudderham was a part of the K-9 team and Criminal Investigation Division. Now, he’s traded in his uniform for a career in front of the camera, all while being visually impaired.
Rudderham said he has a degenerative eye condition and is legally blind. He told paNOW his sight began to go near the end of his policing career, but his loss of sight had nothing to do with his choice to retire.
“I was ready to leave,” he said. “Twenty years is a long time for police, and it was time for me to go.”
After his time on the force, he and his wife, Colleen, began watching different TV series to pass the time. He said Colleen is a big fan of Jason Momoa so they would watch shows that he starred in, like Game of Thrones and Frontier.
One night they were looking for something new to watch when Colleen saw online that Momoa’s new show, See, was casting people who were visually impaired. Before Rudderham knew it, he was on the show.
“My wife said, ‘Hey, you’re doing this’ and I kind of laughed. Then she said, ‘No, you are,’ ” he said. “(It) doesn’t matter what life throws at you, you’ve still got to put yourself out there. So I took my picture and sent in my bio thinking that nothing would ever come of it. Lo and behold they started sending parts to read and the next thing I know, I’m sitting on set next to Jason Momoa.”
With many of the cast members and crew also visually impaired, Rudderham mentioned just how amazing the production team was to assist everyone involved with the show.
“The environment itself was set up to facilitate your success,” he said. “It wasn’t a question of, ‘What can we do?’ It was a question of, ‘What can we do to help you be more successful?’ So whether that was scripts being given in a certain manner or people helping you to and from a scene, it was incredibly open and welcoming and overall was a super positive experience.”
Rudderham also took the time to talk about some of the actors in the show, including Momoa himself and the great character he is off camera.
“Working with (the cast), Jason Momoa included, was surreal in some sense and it was amazing in some sense,” Rudderham explained. “Like with Jason, you hear about what a class act he is and well, he is. He’s amazing, he’s welcoming, he’s professional on set and he’s amazing to watch.
“It was a cool experience just to sit there in that environment and to take it all in. At the same time, you sit there and you’re going, ‘Wow, this is for real.’ It was an amazing and humbling experience, to be honest.”
Rudderham said life is a rollercoaster full of surprises and people shouldn’t stop chasing their dreams just because of a bump in the road.
“If you can dream it, you can do it,” he said. “You’re talking about an opportunity for me that you couldn’t even make up. You couldn’t sit down and write a fictional novel about a former police officer who lost his sight and is now suddenly on a stage of that magnitude.
“Believe in yourself. The other thing I think is important to take away from all of this is that we need to stop as a society asking what can people do for us. We need to start saying, ‘What can we do for them to help them succeed?’ When you take away the barriers, it’s amazing what people can accomplish.”
The show See premiered in 2019 and was not renewed for Season 4 in October. During his time on the show, Rudderham appeared in two episodes during Season 2 of the show, which includes the fourth episode, The Witchfinder, and the eighth episode, Rock-a-Bye.