Valerie Franco

Franco's professional foundation is in live and session drumming — not acting, which makes her 2025 film debut all the more interesting to track. She toured with Halsey, Kylie Minogue, and Hayley Kiyoko, artists whose production demands are serious, and she logged session credits on records by Bonnie McKee and Megan Tibbits (Wikipedia). That's the kind of résumé that keeps a musician working steadily without necessarily making them a household name. She also hosted Behind the Beat, a podcast presumably aimed at drummers and music industry insiders, and she's spoken publicly about Rush as a foundational influence — which, for a drummer, isn't exactly a surprising answer, but it does say something about the technical ambition she brought to the instrument early on. Her 2020 appearance on MTV Unplugged at Home put her in front of a broader television audience as a performer in her own right, not just as a sideman. The pivot toward screen work came with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, directed by Rob Reiner and released in 2025, where Franco plays Didi Crockett (IMDb). It's her only listed film credit at this point — Letterboxd and Fandango both reflect a filmography that starts and currently ends there — but the role lands her in a project with genuine cultural weight. She also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2025, likely tied to the film's promotional cycle. Whether Didi Crockett becomes a recurring presence if the Spinal Tap franchise continues is an open question, but Franco's introduction to film audiences is, at minimum, a memorable one.