Casting the fitting actor for a job usually means discovering somebody who matches the character description in a script, however Josh Sundquist didn’t know if that was potential for his sequence “Greatest Foot Ahead.”
“It sounds foolish on reflection, however this was 4 years in the past,” Sundquist recalled lately. “On the time, it merely didn’t happen to me it might even be potential to rent an amputee actor.”
Sundquist was serving to to solid a fictionalized model of his youthful self, the lead function in “Greatest Foot Ahead,” which debuts Friday on Apple TV+. Loosely primarily based on Sundquist’s memoir, “Simply Don’t Fall,” the sequence facilities on a 12-year-old boy who’s the one baby at his faculty with a limb distinction. Sundquist, who’s an govt producer on the sequence, misplaced his left leg to bone most cancers when he was 10.
The character’s incapacity is on the core of “Greatest Foot Ahead,” however Sundquist’s expectations have been measured. “I simply thought like, ‘Oh, after all we’re going to should solid an able-bodied child and have a physique double,’” he stated. “As a result of that was all I’d ever seen my complete life.”
To Sundquist’s delight, the manufacturing firm behind the present, Muse Leisure, was intent on discovering an actor who shared the character’s incapacity. After casting the newcomer Logan Marmino because the fictional Josh, Sundquist’s perspective on what was potential developed dramatically.
“By the point we obtained to the place we have been greenlit and we have been beginning to search for crew, I used to be totally transformed to the significance of genuine illustration each in entrance of and behind the digicam,” he stated.
What occurs in entrance of the digicam usually dominates the discourse round illustration in leisure. Whereas the information media has in recent times paid some consideration to the dearth of alternative for actors with disabilities, there’s nonetheless loads of room for progress.
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention estimates that 26 % of American adults have a incapacity, however in keeping with a GLAAD report launched earlier this yr, characters with disabilities, together with youngsters, constituted solely 2.8 % of sequence regulars throughout all scripted broadcast TV exhibits within the 2021-22 TV season. (The report didn’t take a complete have a look at incapacity illustration on cable and streaming providers.) Earlier GLAAD analysis, from 2021, discovered that almost all of TV characters with disabilities are performed by non-disabled actors.
Even when disabled actors are solid, it usually addresses solely half of the issue, Sundquist famous. In lots of situations, if you happen to have been to show the digicam round, he stated, “you’ll see that incapacity was solely represented in a single route.”
In making “Greatest Foot Ahead,” Sundquist was decided to rent disabled individuals throughout the manufacturing, however discovering crew members with disabilities was tougher than he anticipated. On the subject of actors, “brokers know that typically you need individuals with disabilities they usually have these individuals already on file,” he stated. However when the producers contacted unions and guilds that characterize crew positions, he stated, they discovered that almost all of them didn’t observe which of their members have disabilities.
So Sundquist resorted to placing call-outs on social media and connecting with incapacity advocacy teams like RespectAbility. “We’re not a staffing company,” stated Lauren Appelbaum, who runs RespectAbility’s Leisure Lab, a workshop for professionals with disabilities working in TV and movie. “We simply discovered ourselves on this place the place studios and particular person productions are reaching out to us saying ‘We wish assist with this.’” Seven individuals who labored on “Greatest Foot Ahead” have been Lab alumni, she added.
“Greatest Foot Ahead” isn’t the primary present to have embody individuals with disabilities on either side of the digicam. A number of exhibits over the previous few years, together with Sundance Now’s “This Shut,” about two greatest associates who’re deaf, and Netflix’s “Particular,” a comedy a few homosexual man with cerebral palsy, have been created by and starred individuals with disabilities. Appelbaum stated “Greatest Foot Ahead” builds on the groundwork laid by these exhibits.
“What makes ‘Greatest Foot Ahead’ actually distinctive is the intentionality behind bringing in disabled crew,” she defined. “Crew throughout all ranges, from manufacturing assistants to administrators.”
One of many present’s writers, Zach Anner, wrote beforehand for “Speechless,” an ABC sequence that ran from 2016-19 and was lauded for its lifelike depiction of a teen who, like Anner, has cerebral palsy. Anner stated there have been only some writers with a incapacity for “Speechless,” “and that was very novel on the time.” On “Greatest Foot Ahead,” he stated, “it was half the writers’ room.”
“Nobody individual felt accountable for representing a whole group,” Anner added. “It additionally freed us as much as simply be humorous.”
In contrast to on many productions, the writers and crew with disabilities on “Greatest Foot Ahead” weren’t tasked with additionally educating non-disabled collaborators and advocating accessibility. That was somebody’s precise job. Kiah Amara served because the manufacturing accessibility coordinator, a comparatively new function in Hollywood that’s usually crammed by disabled professionals who seek the advice of on onscreen authenticity and the best way to accommodate crew members with disabilities.
Step one on set, Amara stated, is to survey the crew and gauge the best way to make the manufacturing as accessible as potential. “I’ll record issues out like: ‘Test the field: Would you want entry to a sensory-friendly room?’” Amara stated. “‘Do you want your scripts or paperwork in darkish mode? Do you want a dyslexia-accessible font?’” Then comes crew coaching that covers disability-related language and the best way to create an inclusive area.
“It’s not the disabled people who must be taught something,” Amara stated. “It’s all of the non-disabled people who must proceed to be on this area of, like, ‘Right here’s the best way to not be scared of considering that you simply’re going to mess up.’”
Amara discovered, when consulting on previous productions, that the reluctance to rent disabled crew usually stems from an assumption that doing so will value extreme money and time. This pervasive perception can lead some crew members to cover their disabilities. “They could select to not disclose it to anyone — it’s nonetheless very unsafe within the business to be disabled,” Amara stated.
That was one thing Sundquist was aware of when attempting to recruit crew members with disabilities. “We have been in a position to name and be like: ‘Hey, I heard you had some dangerous experiences on set. Sorry about that. We’re going to attempt to do higher on our set. Can we persuade you to come back on board?’”
In doing so, the manufacturing incessantly attracted “individuals whose résumés didn’t but replicate their degree of expertise,” Sundquist stated, who have been then in a position to convey these issues extra in line by advantage of their credit score on “Greatest Foot Ahead.” He talked about for example Ashley Eakin, a limb-different director whose earlier work had been restricted principally to quick movies. Eakin directed two episodes of “Greatest Foot Ahead.”
“By her coming into the present, then she will get into the Administrators Guild, which makes it a lot simpler to seek out future directorial work,” Sundquist stated.
The manufacturing crew additionally included proof of the untapped abilities that may lie inside those that others may overlook. One instance was Marissa Erickson, a manufacturing assistant who was tasked with corralling and transporting the kid actors from faculty to set. “In my hometown, Alameda, I often work in a kindergarten as a trainer’s aide,” stated Erickson, who added that she was excited to mix her earlier manufacturing expertise and her expertise working with youngsters.
Erickson, who has Down syndrome, was one of many crew members really useful by Appelbaum at RespectAbility, having participated within the group’s 2019 Leisure Lab. Appelbaum recalled a workshop during which Erickson participated alongside executives from a significant studio: “Marissa stood up and began speaking about a few of the work that she has executed, and I noticed an exec, like, their mouth simply drop.” Appelbaum stated Erickson’s work ethic and expertise upended the chief’s expectations of somebody with Down syndrome.
“I believe, of their thoughts, they have been considering, ‘Yeah after all we may rent somebody who makes use of a wheelchair,’ however they weren’t considering that they may rent somebody with an mental or developmental incapacity,” Appelbaum stated. “Marissa clearly proves that flawed.” Just lately, Erickson was provided three manufacturing assistant jobs concurrently. (She accepted a place on a Disney+ quick movie anthology sequence referred to as “Launchpad.”)
Appelbaum and others stated that with a purpose to enhance incapacity illustration on movie and tv units, it was essential for guilds and unions to survey their members for disabilities in addition to for demographic data like race and gender. The Writers Guild of America does, and the Director’s Guild of America started soliciting details about incapacity standing in member surveys in 2021. The Worldwide Alliance of Theatrical Stage Staff (I.A.T.S.E.), the union that represents crew members like grips, cinematographers, costumers and make-up artists, voted final yr to start holding an annual census in an effort to spice up range inside its membership. However it’s unclear whether or not it is going to embody details about disabilities. (The I.A.T.S.E. didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
“With out the info, it’s arduous to get issues to vary,” Appelbaum stated. “When you’ve the arduous numbers, individuals are more likely to wish to change one thing.”
Till then, Anner, the author, is hopeful that “Greatest Foot Ahead” may function an essential step ahead for hiring practices in Hollywood.
“For me, it kind of put an finish to that argument that you simply hear typically of individuals saying, ‘Oh, we seemed for somebody with a incapacity, we seemed for an individual of shade, and we couldn’t discover anybody,’” he stated. “We will level to this and say, ‘No, there are lots.’”
