![]() “I just really look up to them so much,” offers Durant, earnestly eying his castmates. You’re going to find the right people to surround yourself with at the right time.’ ” Since then, Durant, Kotsur and Matlin have crisscrossed paths on multiple projects, finally landing together in Deaf West’s revival of the musical Spring Awakening, which made its way to Broadway in 2015. “I was just there telling him, you know, ‘Keep going. “This is the first time I’ve seen a deaf guy who is just nailing this acting thing.”įor his part, the 53-year-old Kotsur - an Arizona-born veteran performer known for his stage work in productions like the Tony-winning Big River - saw himself in the newbie. “It was like he was just dancing with poetry,” remembers Durant. On the first day of rehearsals, he walked in to find Kotsur, the play’s lead, onstage performing a poem and was thunderstruck. college for the deaf and hard of hearing - Durant flew out to audition for Deaf West, an L.A.-based nonprofit that produces theater inspired by deaf culture, landing a role in a 2012 production of Cyrano. Having not quite found his place, nor declared a major at Gallaudet University - the Washington, D.C. The Minnesota native, 31, was first discovered by a manager through his YouTube page, where he would upload “deaf jokes, vlogs, that kind of thing,” he says. In their minds, they are managing risk.”ĬODA marks the feature film debut of Durant, playing the calf sock- and Nike slide-wearing Leo, the endlessly charming if not occasionally overbearing onscreen son of Matlin’s Jackie and Kotsur’s Frank (read THR’s review here). ![]() “The thought process is often that they want people who are known quantities. “Inauthentic casting happens at the financing and packaging stage,” says Delbert Whetter, a deaf producer and consultant who sits on the board of disability nonprofit RespectAbility. The movie would go on to be made outside the studio system even so, financing a midbudget independent feature with three-quarters of its lead cast played by deaf actors was unprecedented. “(Lionsgate’s biggest hits at the time were franchise films like the dystopic YA installment Allegiant, John Wick 2 and Now You See Me 2.) Wachsberger took the project with him as a part of his 2018 departure. But “it was never going to happen, it was not really a part of the mandate. “At the time, I said to myself there is the potential to do a smart remake,” says Patrick Wachsberger, then Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group co-chairman. Based on the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, the project originally was set up at Lionsgate, where writer-director Sian Heder - fresh off her 2016 Sundance feature Tallulah - pitched for it, beating out two other finalists upon being hired to adapt it. PHOTOGRAPHED BY Jai LennardĬODA, which stands for Children of Deaf Adults, follows the Rossis, a blue-collar fishing family in Gloucester, Massachusetts, as their hearing daughter (played by Emilia Jones), who also acts as the family interpreter, is considering college. ![]() And I sound like I’m complaining, but that’s why I’ve always been interested in collaborating, creating and coming up with ideas,” says Matlin, about her career. “I can’t really be as choosy as other actors who can hear. “We’re talking about a new generation of viewers.” “To have a hearing actor put on a deaf character as if it was a costume, I think we’ve moved beyond that point now,” says Matlin. ![]() 13, is primed to become a new cornerstone in what is shaping up to be a watershed moment in disability representation in Hollywood. Buoyed by its $25 million record-breaking Sundance sale, CODA, out Aug. This month will see the release of CODA, which is fronted by three deaf actors: Matlin, Troy Kotsur and newcomer Daniel Durant. More than 30 years after Children of a Lesser God (the movie that won Matlin an Oscar, making her the first, and still only, deaf actor to do so), the entertainment industry is placing a major emphasis on inclusion, with deaf and disabled talent pushing - alongside activist groups meeting with studios, streamers and networks - to ensure that they do not get lost in larger diversity conversations. Put another way: “I only saw half of the movie. “It deprives us of being able to access the story just like anybody else,” she says. Now, Matlin was missing out on Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” playing over a car chase with Cruella’s Panther De Ville. In 2016, Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount and Sony beat a class-action lawsuit in California brought against them by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, which alleged various laws were violated in the studios’ refusal to provide captioning or subtitling of song lyrics in feature films. 'CODA' Director Sian Heder to Helm 'Impossible' Adaptation
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