Is The Peanut Butter Falcon a watershed moment… | Little White Lies

Disability in Film

Is The Peanut But­ter Fal­con a water­shed moment for on-screen disability?

16 Oct 2019

Words by Leigh Singer

3 men sitting on sofa, video camera equipment in front of them
3 men sitting on sofa, video camera equipment in front of them
The film’s direc­tors and star Zack Gottsagen, who has Down syn­drome, dis­cuss over­com­ing indus­try stigma.

Cliff Robert­son in Char­ly. Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Dustin Hoff­man in Rain Man. Tom Han­ks in For­rest Gump. Eddie Red­mayne in The The­o­ry of Every­thing. Able-bod­ied actors play­ing char­ac­ters with a par­tic­u­lar phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­i­ty has long been a laud­ed and lucra­tive career path. Just ask the actors list­ed above, all Oscar win­ners of the past 50-odd years.

But if Zack Gottsagen were to join this pres­ti­gious roll call for his work in The Peanut But­ter Fal­con – not unthink­able giv­en the gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive reac­tion to the film – it would rep­re­sent a water­shed moment in cin­e­ma, not in terms of the type of role deemed award-wor­thy but the type of actor all-too reg­u­lar­ly over­looked, or nev­er con­sid­ered in the first place.

Gottsagen, 34, has Down syn­drome, as does his char­ac­ter Zak, who escapes his sti­fling nurs­ing home and embarks on a jour­ney across Carolina’s coun­try­side and water­ways along­side Shia LaBeouf’s want­ed felon, hop­ing to ful­fil his dream of becom­ing a pro wrestler. It’s a charm­ing, Mark Twain-like picaresque imbued with an ener­gy and spon­tane­ity that comes from its star­ry cast (Dako­ta John­son, Bruce Dern, John Hawkes) play­ing off of Gottsagen’s guile­less per­for­mance. Yet as first-time direc­tors Tyler Nil­son and Michael Schwartz explain, some indus­try financiers only saw the project as viable with a dif­fer­ent lead­ing man.

We had a few meet­ings where peo­ple were excit­ed about sup­port­ing us, but only if we replaced Zack,” Schwartz reveals. They want­ed to do it Dustin Hoff­man and Rain Man style. But we knew Zack could do that job bet­ter than any­body. So we turned down a cou­ple of offers to do it with a famous, able-bod­ied actor.” Nil­son adds, It was nev­er an option for us.”

The pair dis­cov­ered Gottsagen at a sum­mer camp for actors with dis­abil­i­ties and were stunned by his per­for­mance in a short film. He was pret­ty phe­nom­e­nal,” remem­bers Nil­son. Zack want­ed to be in a [fea­ture] movie. We’d nev­er made a movie. So we all took the jour­ney togeth­er. The cool thing was that the script real­ly came from neces­si­ty, writ­ing to tai­lor it for Zack.”

To off­set their lack of film expe­ri­ence or con­tacts, Nil­son and Schwartz shot a short proof of con­cept’ video, show­cas­ing their ambi­tions and Zack’s tal­ent. But it’s only when you talk to Gottsagen him­self that you realise his nat­ur­al con­fi­dence is the best counter to any doubts. I would say [to crit­ics], you know, you need to chill, and we get to show what we can do,” he says. I prac­tised all my lines and was doing very, very hard work. But I’m just doing the thing I love to do the first.”

His favourite scenes? Shia and me throw­ing the water­mel­ons and eat­ing them, and all the wrestling togeth­er. And my oth­er moment is danc­ing with Dako­ta. She loves danc­ing too with me.”

Outdoor group of people, some smiling, others looking serious, with varied clothing and hairstyles.

Dako­ta would say, get­ting in a scene with Zack is like get­ting in a scene with a tiger,” explains Schwartz. You know, he’s bril­liant, he’s pow­er­ful, he’s gonna go where he’s gonna go and you’ve got to fol­low him. So Zack was the leader in front of and behind the cam­era. Shia says it’s changed his whole approach to act­ing – that he used to come in and be in con­trol and say, This is my set, this is how I do it.’ And now he’s real­ly mak­ing space for oth­er actors and being more vulnerable.”

It’s indica­tive, too, of a wider shift in pub­lic per­cep­tion that has been evi­dent ever since the film’s SXSW pre­mière in March, where it won the Audi­ence Award. I think we’ve had some pos­i­tive rip­ple effects,” agrees Schwartz. When a movie that fea­tures some­body with dif­fer­ent abil­i­ty makes mon­ey, I think the busi­ness peo­ple go, Shit, that’s work­ing. Okay, let’s do more of that.’ And I’m hap­py that’s happening.”

Still, Gottsagen in The Peanut But­ter Fal­con – or the cur­rent Lon­don stage exam­ple, where actor Storme Toomis, who has cere­bral pal­sy, became the first-ever dis­abled actor in West End his­to­ry to play the title role in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg’ – are still very much excep­tions to the rule. See the recent case where actor Adam Pear­son (Under the Skin), who has Neu­rofi­bro­mato­sis type 1, a con­di­tion thought to have affect­ed Joseph Mer­rick, was denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to audi­tion for the part in a new BBC adap­ta­tion of The Ele­phant Man (the role ulti­mate­ly went to Stranger Things star Char­lie Heaton).

Matthew Hel­lett, a pro­gram­mer at Brighton’s Oska Bright Film Fes­ti­val, the world’s biggest learn­ing dis­abil­i­ty film fes­ti­val, knows well the industry’s typ­i­cal bar­ri­ers. “ Peo­ple make films about us and not with us,” he says. It often feels like a closed com­mu­ni­ty that we can’t get into. [Oska Bright has] been work­ing since 2004, cre­at­ing our own space and plat­form for people’s sto­ries to be told.”

Of course, there’s still the thorny ques­tion of whether able-bod­ied actors are ever jus­ti­fied in play­ing dis­abled roles. What hap­pens with, say, Stephen Hawk­ing, who was only afflict­ed by Motor Neu­rone Dis­ease lat­er in life? I’m still fig­ur­ing it out myself, too, so I don’t real­ly have an answer for you,” Nil­son con­fess­es. My Left Foot was great,” Schwartz points out. But for us, this was real­ly spe­cif­ic. We just want­ed to make a movie with Zack because he’s tal­ent­ed, not because he has Down syndrome.”

Hel­lett is far less cir­cum­spect. Eddie Red­mayne, Leonar­do DiCaprio and so many oth­ers… these peo­ple don’t know any­thing about the lives and expe­ri­ences of dis­abled peo­ple. Some­times it’s as if we don’t exist.” Has any able-bod­ied actor ever done a good job? No, I can’t think of any­one. I some­times feel a bit jeal­ous, because I know they’re play­ing that part when some­one else could be.”

So what would Gottsagen like to do next on film? I would say danc­ing,” he says with­out hes­i­ta­tion. With Dako­ta John­son? Yeah,” he agrees, eyes light­ing up. For once it sounds like a sequel gen­uine­ly worth making.

The Peanut But­ter Fal­con is released on 18 Octo­ber. The Oska Bright Film Fes­ti­val runs 23 – 26 October.

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