Disabled Characters Should Be Played By Disabled Actors Transcript

Barnett, C. (2020, December 31). Disabled characters should be played by disabled actors: Opinion. The Tennessean. https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2020/12/31/disabled-characters-should-played-disabled-actors/4091852001/

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[light piano music]

Person 1: I am the real deal.

Person 2: I stopped feeling ashamed for things that don’t matter [laughter].

Mat Fraser: His body, his body, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba, ba-ba, bam!

I love the power of my magic hands.

[music stops]

Mat Fraser: The world needs to see a project like this because the world has been going on about diversity with their lists of “pro this” and “pro that”, and we always seem to be get–we always seem to be left out of the diversity list.

All I will say is in the–these modern times, people are suddenly realizing “oh my god,” in that listing we were doing that started with “Me Too” and “Oscar So White”, oh my god, disabled people [pause] matter, and representation matters with all types of other.

Like most actors, I can’t control getting the part, just the acting. But unlike most actors, not getting the part can often have nothing to do with my acting and everything to do with these [ahhhhhhhhh!].

I asked the writers when we commission them, I said don’t–I don’t want no safety safe stuff, ya know, go there. If there’s a place you wanna go that people have told you you can’t go before, go there, bearing in mind that it’s family entertainment, ya know, um, and wow, they did not disappoint. We’ve got a coming out story, a gay coming out story, abortion stories, carers that become too controlling, uh, facing an amputation, um, and my one, which is a little, um, well it’s more about the disabled actor’s experience which is just called “Audition”.

We’re in changing times; it’s transitionary. There are going to be productions where there are disabled people playing disabled characters and abled actors playing disabled characters; that is going to happen. And then, finally, we’ll get to disabled people should play disabled people, the end. The one tagline, should disabled people play themselves, or should anybody be able to play disabled people? I’m like, have a look at when disabled people do play themselves and tell me if you think it’s better. I–I’m fairly confident you would agree with me that it is.