Carbon black is one of the best reinforcing fillers available in the industry but there are concerns about its environmental impact and carbon footprint. On the other side of the spectrum, the use of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) with their specific strength, renewability, widespread availability, and relatively low cost have made them the prime environmental choice for sustainable industrial applications. Quite a few polymer composite applications have been proven viable in the literature. In this paper, we present polylactic acid(PLA)-Grafted CNC as a viable reinforcing filler that can be easily dispersed in polychloroprene rubber latex and thus incorporated in rubber films. This can be achieved without a high energy consumption commonly experienced in internal/external mixers and leads to an increase of modulus without sacrificing other physical properties such as elongation at break. The dispersibility and microscopic studies for the native and surface modified CNCs (SMCNC) in rubber latex are compared and reported here. This filler is a good candidate for latex composite applications especially for biomedical applications.