Hall Protests Casting Non-Disabled Actors In Disabled Roles

[CSI Files]

The popular new Fox series Glee features a young paraplegic character named Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale). The show has earned some criticism for choosing a non-disabled actor to play the role. “I think there’s a fear of litigation, that a person with disabilities might slow a production down, fear that viewers might be uncomfortable,” said [...]

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[PerfectAnomaly]

I admire Mr. Hall for advocating for more actors with disabilities getting roles on TV. As a person with a disability it's more than an little frustrating not to see anyone I can really relate to on TV. But I'm also an advocate for the best actor getting the job. It's a fine line with me. Kevin Rankin played Herc, a quad rugby player, on "Friday Night Lights" and was brilliant in the role. He's an able bodied actor, but I couldn't imagine anyone else playing Herc.

 

[myfuturecsi]

I admire Mr. Hall for advocating for more actors with disabilities getting roles on TV. As a person with a disability it's more than an little frustrating not to see anyone I can really relate to on TV. But I'm also an advocate for the best actor getting the job. It's a fine line with me. Kevin Rankin played Herc, a quad rugby player, on "Friday Night Lights" and was brilliant in the role. He's an able bodied actor, but I couldn't imagine anyone else playing Herc.

Dumb question, but what if the storyline is about someone who is presently-abled bodied, but due to an accident becomes disabled? What would Hall think? Would that actor have to move aside to make room for somene with a disability?

You made a good point, Perfect Anomaly, I love the show Glee but perhaps it was a matter of casting the perfect person for the gig.

But Hall makes a great point that there needs to be more representation of persons with physical disabilitiies. However, there needs to be more representation from many, many groups in Hollywood such as older actors (particularly female), and persons of different sizes. It's amazing how in such a society with a variety of people, Hollywood can be so narrow-minded and may I say the word 'prejudice'. We're not all thin, young and presently-able bodied!

CSI, unfortunately, is the worst of the worst when it comes to casting. While Hall was an exception, the rest of their casting needs to be looked at as well. The majority is white, thin and plastic looking.

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

I admire Mr. Hall for advocating for more actors with disabilities getting roles on TV. As a person with a disability it's more than an little frustrating not to see anyone I can really relate to on TV. But I'm also an advocate for the best actor getting the job. It's a fine line with me. Kevin Rankin played Herc, a quad rugby player, on "Friday Night Lights" and was brilliant in the role. He's an able bodied actor, but I couldn't imagine anyone else playing Herc.

Dumb question, but what if the storyline is about someone who is presently-abled bodied, but due to an accident becomes disabled? What would Hall think? Would that actor have to move aside to make room for somene with a disability?

I can't speak for Mr. Hall, but IMO it wouldn't make much sense to cast a disabled actor for a role where the character starts out able bodied. An able bodied actor can act like they have a disability but someone with an obvious physical disability can't act like they don't have one. And it wouldn't make sense to have two different actors try and play the same character in a before/after type of scenario unless it was a case of someone being able-bodied as a younger person and then becoming disabled as an older person where aging the character would make sense for the change in actors.

 

[myfuturecsi]

I can't speak for Mr. Hall, but IMO it wouldn't make much sense to cast a disabled actor for a role where the character starts out able bodied. An able bodied actor can act like they have a disability but someone with an obvious physical disability can't act like they don't have one. And it wouldn't make sense to have two different actors try and play the same character in a before/after type of scenario unless it was a case of someone being able-bodied as a younger person and then becoming disabled as an older person where aging the character would make sense for the change in actors.

True..unless they decide to fire the able-bodied actor and put in the disabled actor.

But I think in the case of Glee, they went with whichever actor fit their image of the character. I don't think it was a slight on the part of disabled actors. But I wholeheartedly support Hall's efforts because, frankly, Hollywood needs to be more inclusive of all sorts of people in our plualistic world.

 

[PerfectAnomaly]

I can't speak for Mr. Hall, but IMO it wouldn't make much sense to cast a disabled actor for a role where the character starts out able bodied. An able bodied actor can act like they have a disability but someone with an obvious physical disability can't act like they don't have one. And it wouldn't make sense to have two different actors try and play the same character in a before/after type of scenario unless it was a case of someone being able-bodied as a younger person and then becoming disabled as an older person where aging the character would make sense for the change in actors.

True..unless they decide to fire the able-bodied actor and put in the disabled actor.

But that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to have a different actor play the same character after s/he became disabled. That's what I was getting at. People are going to notice it's not the same person. Unless they go the reconstructive surgery route as a way to explain the change, or do the voice over of "the part of John Doe is now being played by [insert actor name here]" which are totally cheesy soap opera moves.

 

[Faylinn]

If Danny had been in a wheelchair permanently on CSI:NY, I doubt anybody would have commented about an abled actor playing the role - as in life, someone who is 'abled' can become 'disabled', and such a storyline and situation is important to put out there. But that's very different than casting Person A to play a disabled character when there are a lot of disabled actors out there who could not only act as well as him/her but also bring an authenticity to the role - and visibility to talented disabled actors who deserve jobs. This is especially true when there are so few roles for disabled actors (since Hollywood doesn't seem to cast many disabled people unless the role specifically calls for it - never mind that many people in our everyday lives just happen to be disabled. I can think of Dr Giles in the first season of CSI:NY as an example of a character who just happened to be disabled and was also played by a disabled actor, but he disappeared after a few episodes).

So yeah, I'd say it's a completely different situation. In some cases, they'd have to cast a non-disabled actor (such as when the character is disabled in the present but there might be flashbacks showing the character before they ended up in the wheelchair, etc), but in cases where the character is and always will be disabled, it's disappointing that we don't see Hollywood using more disabled actors to fill those roles.

PerfectAnomaly said:

But I'm also an advocate for the best actor getting the job. It's a fine line with me. Kevin Rankin played Herc, a quad rugby player, on "Friday Night Lights" and was brilliant in the role. He's an able bodied actor, but I couldn't imagine anyone else playing Herc.

I adore Kevin Rankin - just from the little bit I've seen of his roles, he plays a wide variety of characters (including gay, trans and disabled people). Because I think he's great, I can't imagine anybody else taking his place (I obviously love Tyler on Trauma, otherwise I wouldn't have tracked down some of Kevin's other roles :adore - but at the same time, to be fair, if they'd cast a gay/trans/disabled actor in his place in the roles I've seen, I never would have known the difference* - and I'm sure whoever they cast would have done a fantastic job.

But I'm selfish, so I wouldn't want to see anybody else in Kevin's place. I want him to guest star on all of my shows. I'm already mentally casting him on CSI:NY as someone awesome - hey, a girl can hope. Trauma will only last for so much longer.


*Although I guess I probably wouldn't have seen some of his roles at all since I only watched the episodes because he was in them.