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My Left Foot director: It's not right for non-disabled actors to play disabled characters.

Jim Sheridan, a six-time Academy Award nominee, told Sky News he does "not think it's right anymore" for "able-bodied" actors to play disabled characters

There has been criticism in recent years from leading figures in the TV and film industry of what is known as "cripping up", which often involves non-disabled actors mimicking the physical characteristics of impairments to play disabled characters

Actress and comedian Sally Phillips has said it is just as unacceptable as "blackface".

Sheridan, who was nominated for a best director Oscar for his work on My Left Foot, told Sky News: "I don't think you could make it today. I don't think you could make it without trying to find somebody physically impaired (to play the lead role).

"I think it's a different world and you'd be duty bound."

On non-disabled actors playing disabled roles, Sheridan added: "I don't think it's right anymore. We've gone past that.

"In My Left Foot, we had disabled kids in the movie and I could understand why Daniel stayed in character and never broke out.

"He wanted to respect them so he stayed in character the entire time for 20 weeks and that's as far as he could go as an able-bodied person playing a disabled person."

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by Anonymousreply 60June 24, 2021 3:47 AM

What a hypocrite.

by Anonymousreply 1June 21, 2021 3:29 PM

I'm sure any director who wants to cast a disabled actor in a lead role will have no problem finding funding or an audience.

by Anonymousreply 2June 21, 2021 3:32 PM

Does this apply to Stewie Griffin? I sort of liked his version of "My Left Foot."

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by Anonymousreply 3June 21, 2021 4:02 PM

You'd think he'd understand the meaning of "acting" being a director and all.

If we wanted to watch people essentially playing themselves, we'd watch a documentary.

by Anonymousreply 4June 21, 2021 4:08 PM

Yes please.

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by Anonymousreply 5June 21, 2021 4:08 PM

It’s called acting. This woke crap is getting ridiculous.

by Anonymousreply 6June 21, 2021 4:27 PM

El stupido

by Anonymousreply 7June 21, 2021 4:31 PM

Reminds me of the Russell T Davies thread when "It's a Sin" came out. When straight actors play gay, it's often a mimicry. Same with this article. How many times have we razzed Rosie O for Riding the Bus With My Sister? Or Sia's film from last year?

If Hollywood wants to continue with cringey performances by famous actors, that's their business.

by Anonymousreply 8June 21, 2021 4:34 PM

I think Sheridan's point was that for a dedicated, nuanced portrayal of a disabled person by non-disabled actor, you need a Daniel Day Lewis, otherwise you should probably cast a disabled person.

by Anonymousreply 9June 21, 2021 4:39 PM

So then only a mentally disturbed person can portray a mentally disturbed character?

by Anonymousreply 10June 21, 2021 4:40 PM

In the case of My Left Foot, it wasn't a cringey performance but a brilliant one by Daniel Day-Lewis. Doubtful Sheridan would find a disabled actor who would have been that good, but that doesn't seem to matter in our woke times, where people would rather embrace mediocrity over talent. So does this mean henceforth that only gay actors will play gay and only straight actors will play straight? As if.

by Anonymousreply 11June 21, 2021 4:41 PM

No one ask this guy to do a film about Helen Keller...

by Anonymousreply 12June 21, 2021 4:43 PM

How woke!

by Anonymousreply 13June 21, 2021 4:45 PM

I guess we can only have truly pregnant women playing expectant mothers? Only real siblings playing together in family roles? Only the recently-deceased in coffin shots? Only real priests playing the holy?

This is all stupid.

by Anonymousreply 14June 21, 2021 4:51 PM

It's unlikely that non disabled actors will ever stop playing physically disabled people. We will probably see able bodied actors play paraplegics, quadriplegics, amputees, and others with physical disabilities in films and TV show.

I do think we will see pretty much an end to non disabled actors playing mentally challenged or autistic people in shows or movies. The movie Sia made about the autistic sister was trashed all over the media. There are a lot of past movies and past or current TV shows about mentally challenged or autistic people that do piss off some people when those movies are revisited years later. Rain Man gets trashed by some people today. I'm sure the SJW crowd would probably find reasons to hate movies like I Am Sam. There was a recent thread about Riding the Bus With My Sister and several posters brought up that it was quite common many years ago for the broadcast networks to make a bunch of TV movies about mentally challenged people and many of those movies were just cringeworthy and some people and kids were tuning to laugh at the end results.

I remember several years back, a screenplay about Rosemary Kennedy made it onto The Black List and it was announced that Emma Stone would play her. It seemed like an Oscar bait move. A few years went by, there were articles saying that Stone dropped out of the project and Elisabeth Moss was going to take on the role. The movie has not been made and I suspect it was quietly shelved because studios are figuring out that certain things will just piss off the SJW crowd.

by Anonymousreply 15June 21, 2021 5:05 PM

R12 the audience will be requested to watch the movie with their eyes closed in sympathy.

by Anonymousreply 16June 21, 2021 5:11 PM

“Cripping up.” I learned something new today.

by Anonymousreply 17June 21, 2021 5:16 PM

Then the film should only be directed by someone with that disability.

by Anonymousreply 18June 21, 2021 5:18 PM

Are we cancelling Sir Daniel?

by Anonymousreply 19June 21, 2021 5:20 PM

Then where does that leave disabled actors that want to act in a non disabled role, for example a wheelchair bound actor in a film about running or how about an autistic person acting in a role about gifted individuals. Equal opportunity and fairness.

How about race, how do you fill the role when it’s a movie about Native Americans or tribal people from Africa or the amazons, you see this woke bullshit could go on and on but it’s acting and make believe not a documentary.

by Anonymousreply 20June 21, 2021 5:28 PM

Now only dead people can play dead people. And fucking must be real fucking, no more simulation.

by Anonymousreply 21June 21, 2021 5:37 PM

There goes the entire Marvel Universe!

by Anonymousreply 22June 21, 2021 5:52 PM

I'd give my left foot to play the lead in My Left Foot again

by Anonymousreply 23June 21, 2021 6:00 PM

Does it have to be the exact same disability? So RJ Mitte and Geri Jewell may only play characters with cerebral palsy? Are they banned from playing non-CP afflicted characters?

What if a trans actor wants to audition for a "cis" role? Something tells me nobody is going to tell them to stay in their lane, but only trans are allowed to play trans? Oy vey.

by Anonymousreply 24June 21, 2021 6:06 PM

Has anyone told the entire Broadway cast of "Hamilton"?

by Anonymousreply 25June 21, 2021 6:42 PM

Extrapolating, of course.

by Anonymousreply 26June 21, 2021 6:44 PM

"When "My Left Foot" was released in 1989, the disabled actor/activist Nabil Shaban led a very vocal campaign criticizing the casting of an able-bodied actor as Christy Brown. I remember hearing him on Channel's 4's "After Dark" discussing the issue. According to the bio of Daniel Day-Lewis by Laura Jackson, Shaban also wrote to the filmmakers, protesting the "grotesquely inappropriate casting" as "an obscenity". Sheridan has had 30+ years to mull it all over.

by Anonymousreply 27June 21, 2021 6:45 PM

Activists ignore the fact that an unknown disabled actor would not have brought in the audience numbers that DDL did. Movies are a business, you know.

by Anonymousreply 28June 21, 2021 7:29 PM

Horseshit. It's called acting. He should stick to documentaries from now on.

by Anonymousreply 29June 21, 2021 7:33 PM

Ok - yes, the quadriplegic cerebral palsy actors have been overlooked long enough!! Where exactly are you going to find those?

And, if you hire a high-functioning CP actor (like in the Netflix series 'Special') then there will be cries of using more able-bodied CP actors.

Nothing is good enough. Look - to be an actor, you have to be able to play a broad range of roles. If a quadriplegic cerebral palsy actor wants to go into the acting field, be my guest. But don't think there's going to be a wide range that you can play.

The film and TV industry is a BUSINESS, not a charity and not funded through tax dollars to right civil wrongs.

He has hired non-Irish actors for Irish parts - you going to walk that back now too?

by Anonymousreply 30June 21, 2021 7:46 PM

On the bright side, for all up and coming actors who are willing to "give their right arm" for a part, avenues will be opening.

by Anonymousreply 31June 21, 2021 9:05 PM

I think only actors who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time should be allowed to play in "Shakespeare In Love." What does modern day Paltrow know about acting at The Globe?

by Anonymousreply 32June 21, 2021 9:18 PM

I demand they remove the crown from Netflix for not properly casting alcoholics in roles with alcoholism.

by Anonymousreply 33June 21, 2021 9:29 PM

[quote]I demand they remove the crown from Netflix for not properly casting alcoholics in roles with alcoholism.

And they need to cast homosexuals in the roles of homosexuals.

by Anonymousreply 34June 21, 2021 9:32 PM

what about talking bugs, animals and babies?

by Anonymousreply 35June 21, 2021 9:42 PM

It's quite likely the number of high profile movies about physical and mentally disabled people will diminish and maybe dry up, because of the issues they raise. It's too much trouble - there won't be enough choice of competent actors, they won't be big enough names, investors will be worried, they won't be Oscar bait and they are usually more loss-leaders than money-spinners. Why give your self the grief as a studio or director?..

by Anonymousreply 36June 21, 2021 10:00 PM

I'm fine with "crip porn" going away. As a person with a disability, it's hard to watch. Yes, in some cases it's unavoidable, like the Stephen Hawking movie where he starts out healthy and gets worse. This film that came out a few years ago really rubbed me the wrong way. The producer, who also played the lead, made a number of excuses, one of them being that they needed names to make the movie. 3 leading roles, none of these men are anything close to DDL. You're telling me you couldn't cast 1 disabled man against the 2 "names"?

And it's the same for gay people. It's getting better, but opportunities are still limited for gay actors. Why should we be happy with the heteros taking those parts when actors who live gay lives are punished by Hollywood?

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by Anonymousreply 37June 21, 2021 11:09 PM

Ironically enough, the same people demanding realism in acting roles are likely the same people demanding that biological males be accepted as females on declaration.

by Anonymousreply 38June 21, 2021 11:43 PM

Murder mysteries are going to be at a whole other level from now on.

by Anonymousreply 39June 22, 2021 3:17 AM

Is this story available in Braille?

by Anonymousreply 40June 22, 2021 3:26 AM

[quote]What does modern day Paltrow know about acting?

Fixed it for you R32.

by Anonymousreply 41June 22, 2021 4:03 AM

I think it would be rather difficult in some cases to make a film about physically disabled or mentally challenged people with non actors in many instances just based on what acting requires. Blocking, learning lines, connecting with other actors, and the necessity to do multiple takes in different ways to get to a final product. A character like Corky on Life Goes On or the down syndrome girl on Glee is different because there are many high functioning people with down syndrome but I don't see how you could've gotten an actual person with cerebral palsy to play Christie Brown or a mentally disabled person to play the DiCaprio character in What's Eating Gilbert Grape or Sean Penn in I AM Sam. It just seems unlikely to be able to pull something like that off. This is just becoming over the top.

by Anonymousreply 42June 22, 2021 4:15 AM

This director seems not to understand the profession of acting.

Anyway, his argument could be as easily made about directors.

by Anonymousreply 43June 22, 2021 4:22 AM

Back in the day playing character who was disabled or in an interracial relationship or (gasp!) gay was seen as a form of activism by Hollywood stars.

by Anonymousreply 44June 22, 2021 4:26 AM

Come As You Are was a terrific movie, R37. The movie was super low budget. Do you know how much it would have cost them to handicap-fit everything on the sets for a disabled actor, also to have to shoot twice as long because a profoundly disabled actor would never be able to shoot the long days of a no budget indie. They would never have been able to raise the money to make the film. And consider this- the film was wonderful, one of the best of 2020, and it still barely got a release and no one knows about it. It's really easy NOT to make films about disabled people, to tell their stories. So when someone makes the decision to do it, and do it as well as Come As You Are, everyone needs to shut the fuck up and stop whining that they used actors. Either you support anything that tells these stories well or guess what- you don't see these stories.

by Anonymousreply 45June 22, 2021 4:52 AM

Yawn.

by Anonymousreply 46June 22, 2021 6:21 AM

Abled, or disabled nobody is owed a job acting on screen!

I don't give a crap what your particular victim beef is!

The entire audience has willingly suspended their disbelief, they KNOW IT'S ALL FAKE, that's why no actor ever is required to share ANY quality whatsoever to ANY character other than the ability to play them believably! Period!

by Anonymousreply 47June 22, 2021 6:29 AM

R45 eat my ass Grant.

And the rest of this thread should be very happy to see gay actors ignored and straight actors win awards for telling our stories

by Anonymousreply 48June 22, 2021 8:04 AM

As a gay man, I don't give a shit who plays a gay character, as long as the story is well told and is a plus for us. I can think of dozens of gay films that made a huge difference, and straight men were involved. And I can also think of hundreds of gay films where gay men were all over them and they were horrible, regressive, embarrassing pieces of shit. Face it, we're not doing ourselves any favors.

by Anonymousreply 49June 22, 2021 5:47 PM

R27 A similar thing happened in the late 70s with the movie Voices. It was about a guy who falls in love with a deaf woman. Amy Irving was cast as a deaf woman. Various deaf and hard of hearing organizations complained about that and boycotted the movie.

by Anonymousreply 50June 22, 2021 5:48 PM

[quote] Does it have to be the exact same disability? So RJ Mitte and Geri Jewell may only play characters with cerebral palsy? Are they banned from playing non-CP afflicted characters?

RJ Mitte had a role on Switched At Birth and the character was wheelchair bound. It was written that the character had a spinal cord injury due to a snowboarding accident. I did wonder why they didn't write his character as a person with CP.

by Anonymousreply 51June 22, 2021 8:27 PM

Despite the call for the end of non-disabled actors playing disabled characters, I don't think there will be an absolute end to it for the reasons some have pointed out here. But I don't think it's unreasonable to call for more opportunity for disabled actors. They are out there. When "Glee" first came on air I talked to someone on the production about why couldn't Kevin McHale's character actually be played by someone actually wheelchair bound. His argument was that McHale had someone who was actually wheelchair bound as his trainer so they were still giving a disabled person an opportunity. Which isn't the point because what if the person in the wheelchair wants to act? Why should they be content with training a able-bodied person instead?

[quote]And, if you hire a high-functioning CP actor (like in the Netflix series 'Special') then there will be cries of using more able-bodied CP actors.

Purity tests are still an issue. RJ Mitte's character in Breaking Bad had Cerebral Palsy but he admits he had to put it on a bit because he has a milder case of CP than the character. And although Sound of Metal's Paul Raci doesn't believe hearing people should play deaf characters, he played a deaf character in the film because his parents are deaf and he felt he could do the role justice.

by Anonymousreply 52June 22, 2021 9:02 PM

I think he's missing the whole point of acting...

by Anonymousreply 53June 22, 2021 9:06 PM

Now accepting applications from men with only one ear for our next Vincent van Gogh film. Absolutely no talent necessary. Preference given to those with a scar visible on camera.

by Anonymousreply 54June 23, 2021 4:04 AM

But, R54, he had two ears to start so wouldn't it have to be an actor that is willing to actually have his ear removed half way through filming? Authenticity!

by Anonymousreply 55June 23, 2021 4:13 AM

Whoever will they get to play someone like the elephant man.

by Anonymousreply 56June 23, 2021 4:14 AM

If he ever casts you as a smallpox victim, be sure to read the fine print in your contract very, very carefully.

by Anonymousreply 57June 23, 2021 4:23 AM

Zombie movies should be fun from now on.

by Anonymousreply 58June 23, 2021 5:02 AM

"Seabiscuit: The Sequel"

I'm practically a shoo-in for the Oscar. So exciting!!

by Anonymousreply 59June 23, 2021 5:37 PM

R56 Maybe, Marjorie Taylor Green could get into acting if politics don't work out for her.

by Anonymousreply 60June 24, 2021 3:47 AM
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