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."
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 60 | June 24, 2021 3:47 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 2 | June 21, 2021 3:32 PM
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Does this apply to Stewie Griffin? I sort of liked his version of "My Left Foot."
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 3 | June 21, 2021 4:02 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 4 | June 21, 2021 4:08 PM
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It’s called acting. This woke crap is getting ridiculous.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | June 21, 2021 4:27 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 8 | June 21, 2021 4:34 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 9 | June 21, 2021 4:39 PM
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So then only a mentally disturbed person can portray a mentally disturbed character?
by Anonymous | reply 10 | June 21, 2021 4:40 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 11 | June 21, 2021 4:41 PM
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No one ask this guy to do a film about Helen Keller...
by Anonymous | reply 12 | June 21, 2021 4:43 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 14 | June 21, 2021 4:51 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 15 | June 21, 2021 5:05 PM
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R12 the audience will be requested to watch the movie with their eyes closed in sympathy.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | June 21, 2021 5:11 PM
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“Cripping up.” I learned something new today.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | June 21, 2021 5:16 PM
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Then the film should only be directed by someone with that disability.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | June 21, 2021 5:18 PM
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Are we cancelling Sir Daniel?
by Anonymous | reply 19 | June 21, 2021 5:20 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 20 | June 21, 2021 5:28 PM
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Now only dead people can play dead people. And fucking must be real fucking, no more simulation.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | June 21, 2021 5:37 PM
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There goes the entire Marvel Universe!
by Anonymous | reply 22 | June 21, 2021 5:52 PM
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I'd give my left foot to play the lead in My Left Foot again
by Anonymous | reply 23 | June 21, 2021 6:00 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 24 | June 21, 2021 6:06 PM
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Has anyone told the entire Broadway cast of "Hamilton"?
by Anonymous | reply 25 | June 21, 2021 6:42 PM
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Extrapolating, of course.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | June 21, 2021 6:44 PM
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"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 Anonymous | reply 27 | June 21, 2021 6:45 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 28 | June 21, 2021 7:29 PM
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Horseshit. It's called acting. He should stick to documentaries from now on.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | June 21, 2021 7:33 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 30 | June 21, 2021 7:46 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 31 | June 21, 2021 9:05 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 32 | June 21, 2021 9:18 PM
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I demand they remove the crown from Netflix for not properly casting alcoholics in roles with alcoholism.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | June 21, 2021 9:29 PM
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[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 Anonymous | reply 34 | June 21, 2021 9:32 PM
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what about talking bugs, animals and babies?
by Anonymous | reply 35 | June 21, 2021 9:42 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 36 | June 21, 2021 10:00 PM
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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?
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 37 | June 21, 2021 11:09 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 38 | June 21, 2021 11:43 PM
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Murder mysteries are going to be at a whole other level from now on.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | June 22, 2021 3:17 AM
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Is this story available in Braille?
by Anonymous | reply 40 | June 22, 2021 3:26 AM
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[quote]What does modern day Paltrow know about acting?
Fixed it for you R32.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | June 22, 2021 4:03 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 42 | June 22, 2021 4:15 AM
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This director seems not to understand the profession of acting.
Anyway, his argument could be as easily made about directors.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | June 22, 2021 4:22 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 44 | June 22, 2021 4:26 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 45 | June 22, 2021 4:52 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 47 | June 22, 2021 6:29 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 48 | June 22, 2021 8:04 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 49 | June 22, 2021 5:47 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 50 | June 22, 2021 5:48 PM
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[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 Anonymous | reply 51 | June 22, 2021 8:27 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 52 | June 22, 2021 9:02 PM
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I think he's missing the whole point of acting...
by Anonymous | reply 53 | June 22, 2021 9:06 PM
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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 Anonymous | reply 54 | June 23, 2021 4:04 AM
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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 Anonymous | reply 55 | June 23, 2021 4:13 AM
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Whoever will they get to play someone like the elephant man.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | June 23, 2021 4:14 AM
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If he ever casts you as a smallpox victim, be sure to read the fine print in your contract very, very carefully.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | June 23, 2021 4:23 AM
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Zombie movies should be fun from now on.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | June 23, 2021 5:02 AM
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"Seabiscuit: The Sequel"
I'm practically a shoo-in for the Oscar. So exciting!!
by Anonymous | reply 59 | June 23, 2021 5:37 PM
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R56 Maybe, Marjorie Taylor Green could get into acting if politics don't work out for her.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | June 24, 2021 3:47 AM
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