Nothing about us without us – the reality of… | Little White Lies

Disability in Film

Noth­ing about us with­out us – the real­i­ty of being a dis­abled actor

29 Jun 2016

A person in a dark jacket and hoodie, sitting in a wheelchair against a dark background.
A person in a dark jacket and hoodie, sitting in a wheelchair against a dark background.
With dis­abled per­form­ers being pushed fur­ther into the back­ground, three actors speak frankly about what’s real­ly going on.

Today, dis­abled peo­ple make up approx­i­mate­ly 19 per cent of the work­ing pop­u­la­tion of the UK, but you wouldn’t know it from switch­ing on the TV or going to your local cin­e­ma. The truth is, for every dis­abil­i­ty film fes­ti­val or scheme that push­es the mer­its of dis­abled actors, there are still numer­ous bar­ri­ers to equal­i­ty in the sys­tem, from access to igno­rance to bla­tant discrimination.

For a while, it all seemed like it might be dif­fer­ent. In 1976, Britain’s Union of the Phys­i­cal­ly Impaired Against Seg­re­ga­tion bold­ly claimed that, it is soci­ety which dis­ables phys­i­cal­ly impaired peo­ple.” This was the era of crip the­atre and oth­er rad­i­cal art move­ments that fought to reclaim the iden­ti­ty of dis­abil­i­ty. At the Nation­al Film The­atre, Allan Suther­land and Steve Dwoskin pro­grammed the pio­neer­ing Car­ry On Crip­ple sea­son, while inde­pen­dent the­atre com­pa­nies sprang up around the coun­ty. This was the fuck-you face of dis­abil­i­ty, telling it like it was regard­less of whether peo­ple want­ed to lis­ten. But even as guys like Bil­ly Gol­fus con­tin­ued to push the enve­lope, show­ing When Bil­ly Broke His Head… and Oth­er Tales of Won­der at Sun­dance in 1995 (tag line: This ain’t exact­ly your inspi­ra­tional crip­ple sto­ry!’), the main­stream proved stub­born­ly resis­tant to equality.

They don’t want gangs of dis­abled peo­ple in the movies,” says Lucy Gwin, edi­tor of Mouth mag­a­zine, The Voice of the Dis­abil­i­ty Nation’. It’s like a vision of death. That’s what goes on in the minds of peo­ple who want to have their movies and all their fan­cy occa­sions with­out us.” With that in mind, we spoke to three dis­abled actors and asked them to share the highs and lows of their pro­fes­sion­al lives.

Close-up portrait of a woman with eyes closed, wearing a high-collared sweater, in black and white.

As a child, my inter­est start­ed out in radio dra­ma, then I did voiceover work for audio mag­a­zines as a teenag­er, and even­tu­al­ly I came into act­ing. It was some­thing that was born of oth­er things, but it’s a love that’s grown. My big break was an audi­tion for a guest lead role in a show called William and Mary. I got the part, and then had the huge shock of going from 40-sec­ond com­mer­cials to a nine-scene role in a prime time dra­ma, which was ter­ri­fy­ing but great fun, and obvi­ous­ly real­ly good for my career.

When I’m on set, the only dif­fer­ence real­ly is that I need the script in advance because I put it into Braille, and on the day I’ll have an access work­er there to read it to me in case there are changes. In terms of the phys­i­cal film­ing process, the only adjust­ment that would have to be made is if I have to walk a spe­cif­ic route that has to be accu­rate in terms of the direc­tion if it’s a tight frame. I might need to prac­tice that a cou­ple of times to make sure that I’m going to be able to walk exact­ly where they want me to.

I have felt dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in my career. Right from want­i­ng to go to a main­stream school through to my career choic­es now, there have been peo­ple along the way who have either very out­spo­ken­ly or more tact­ful­ly giv­en me the same mes­sage: Don’t both­er’, or cer­tain­ly, Think long and hard before you do it’. And I also know of peo­ple who’ve gone for cast­ings where they are sup­pos­ed­ly look­ing for some­body with a dis­abil­i­ty, but then a non-dis­abled actor gets the role. Even if the non-dis­abled actor has more expe­ri­ence, with so few roles for us, how can we ever be expect­ed to build up as much expe­ri­ence, and there­fore be as pro­fi­cient as an actor who prob­a­bly goes to cast­ings most weeks?

The way the cast­ings are run at, and the way the sys­tem is, means that there are a lot of bar­ri­ers, which obvi­ous­ly lim­its the amount of work you can go for. Hence why I’ve got a pret­ty diverse career. I don’t think there is enough risk-tak­ing. For some direc­tors, if a per­son looked dif­fer­ent, say, because of their eyes, every­thing else about them would have to be per­fect if they were going to make that com­pen­sa­tion. And I don’t think there is enough fore­sight as to how dis­abil­i­ty can be a part of a piece of dra­ma with­out it hav­ing to be the cen­tral fea­ture. It’s true that I do things slight­ly dif­fer­ent­ly because of my dis­abil­i­ty, but I cer­tain­ly wouldn’t dis­cuss it in every­day life like it’s dis­cussed in dra­mas. Instead of being issue based, it could be far more inter­est­ing and dis­crete if it was just there – just part of you as a per­son – rather than a major part of the storyline.

There’s a lot of peo­ple you could blame if you were going to go down that route. You could blame com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors, you could blame writ­ers, you could blame cast­ing direc­tors, you could blame us as per­form­ers for not being vocal enough. But it’s dif­fi­cult to be vocal when peo­ple aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly that inter­est­ed in lis­ten­ing to you. I would like to see true inclu­sive cast­ing, that would be a per­fect world, but I see that that is an awful long way off in terms of film.”

Anna Can­nings is an actress who was born with bilat­er­al microph­thalmia, which means that her eyes haven’t ful­ly devel­oped. She was the first blind pupil to attend a main­stream school. In 2015 she starred in Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot.

Man in wheelchair, black and white portrait

Right from being a child I was inter­est­ed in enter­tain­ing peo­ple. I did the school plays as most wannabe actors do, then I went to col­lege and stud­ied per­form­ing arts. Fol­low­ing that – after quite a lot of dis­crim­i­na­tion from places – I man­aged to enrol at dra­ma school. Some of the places said that they didn’t see the point in train­ing dis­abled actors at that time because there was no work for us, and a lot of them had no access. It was a real bat­tle to get any­where. It was dev­as­tat­ing, but if you don’t get in some­where, it’s very dif­fi­cult to prove that you’re being turned down on the grounds of disability.

You have to be care­ful – if you com­plain too much you quick­ly get a rep­u­ta­tion for being dif­fi­cult’. But one of the things you need as an actor is tenac­i­ty, and I had sup­port­ive par­ents who wouldn’t allow me to give up. I even­tu­al­ly man­aged to pull through, but it was heart­break­ing. What’s even hard­er is fac­ing the crit­i­cisms from with­in the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty [about being a token pres­ence]. I have spent many hours ago­nis­ing over them, because all I’m try­ing to do is be an actor. In my view, the strongest way we can fight against dis­crim­i­na­tion is just to do the job, there’s not real­ly a lot more we can do. I’m ulti­mate­ly just an actor – I get paid to do the job and I have to do what I’m told. I can’t afford to make waves.

I nev­er want­ed to be a trail­blaz­er, and I wouldn’t wish it on any­body. All I want to do is work as an actor – that’s all I ever want­ed – so to have what feels like a con­stant eye over my shoul­der watch­ing every­thing I do is quite dif­fi­cult. Just give me a break – I’m doing the best I can with the parts I get offered. If I real­ly thought they were doing dam­age to our cause I would speak up, but all I can do is be true to myself; I can’t reflect the point of view of every dis­abled per­son in this country.

I sup­pose the roles that I’ve played on tele­vi­sion have all been about’ dis­abil­i­ty to a greater or less­er degree, in the same way that black actors in the 70s were all play­ing parts to do with the colour of their skin. To move for­ward, we need to look at roles in oth­er areas, maybe the the­atre. I think the the­atre could do a lot more because although it may be less heard about than tele­vi­sion, any area we can get into which will push us for­ward and let us be seen by peo­ple in anoth­er way is going to be helpful.

If I was in charge I’d open up more train­ing cours­es, I would talk to dra­ma schools and say, Look, we want to give dis­abled actors roles and see them play­ing parts on the tele­vi­sion, but we need you as an insti­tu­tion to give them the train­ing.’ That’s where it needs to start. But then act­ing is renowned as a dif­fi­cult pro­fes­sion – there’s no point get­ting too angry about that because all actors suf­fer. If you’re not pre­pared for that, then you don’t go into it.”

Paul Hen­shall is an actor who got his big break in the dra­ma A Thing Called Love before land­ing a gig on Hol­by City. He has cere­bral pal­sy, a dis­abil­i­ty that affects the limbs. He recent­ly com­plet­ed film­ing on The Con­fu­sion of Tongues.

Woman in a patterned blouse, looking thoughtful, in black and white.

My mum entered me for a mod­el­ling com­pe­ti­tion in the local news­pa­per when I was at school, but when I got through to the cat­walk, she said, Look, you can’t go because you’re in a wheel­chair. They won’t be able to cope with you.’ She didn’t want to dis­ap­point me because I’d had some bad expe­ri­ences when I was younger where peo­ple weren’t pre­pared for me to show up like this, but I was real­ly upset. So a while lat­er I applied for a TV show called Mod­el Behav­iour, and I let them know that I was in a wheel­chair. Even­tu­al­ly through that I was signed to a dis­abled tal­ent agency.

I didn’t realise that dis­abled peo­ple could do act­ing. You don’t real­ly think about it, do you? But there aren’t that many roles for dis­abled peo­ple, and it’s a shame when actors who are able bod­ied get them. We don’t want to put dis­abled peo­ple in some­thing just for the sake of it, but it means that they’re ignor­ing some­body who’s as good at act­ing and who’s prob­a­bly going to be more nat­ur­al when they’re in a wheel­chair. I think that peo­ple in soci­ety don’t know how to cope with wheel­chairs, and because peo­ple in nor­mal, every­day life can’t deal with it, the media have found it hard to incor­po­rate it.

Just because you’re in a wheel­chair doesn’t mean you’re worse off than some­body else. It’s because peo­ple in the media por­tray peo­ple in wheel­chairs as being ill. Maybe when peo­ple who are dis­abled are in every­day sit­u­a­tions, like, when they go to job inter­views, or they go to uni, or they meet new peo­ple, then peo­ple will treat them nor­mal­ly rather than dif­fer­ent, and they’ll be able to look past the dis­abil­i­ty. Once peo­ple get over dis­abil­i­ty and see you as a per­son, that’s when they’re going to start see­ing us in films. That’s when you’ll be accept­ed and integrated.”

Peo­ple have to get used to dis­abil­i­ty first. My mum’s a car­er at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre and looks after peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties dur­ing the day. With some of the peo­ple there, visu­al­ly it’s some­thing that’s dif­fi­cult to look at. Peo­ple need time to get used to that sort of thing. It scares them – if you say, Do you want to watch some­thing and, oh yeah, it’s about dis­abil­i­ty,’ peo­ple get wor­ried. That’s why you won’t see it on TV or film, but things like that are true. That’s real life. I think it’s more hope­ful for future gen­er­a­tions, though. If there are good dis­abled actors out there, then peo­ple can’t be turned down for­ev­er, can they?”

Sasha Hard­way is an actress and mod­el who has a rare form of dys­to­nia, a dis­abil­i­ty that caus­es pain in her mus­cles and means she is unable to put her heels on the floor or keep her balance.

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