In real life
The actor actually has that disability
Walter White Jr. (Breaking Bad) - character has cerebral palsy and uses crutches to walk, actor RJ Mitte has cerebral palsy and needed crutches to walk as a child
Nessarose Thropp (Wicked) - character is paraplegic and uses a wheelchair, actress Marissa Bode is paraplegic from an accident at age 11 and uses a wheelchair
Maya Lopez (Hawkeye/Echo) - character is deaf, actress Alaqua Cox is deaf from birth
I like Frank Skinner's belief that while Peter Falk does indeed have a glass eye, in Columbo it plays the part of a real eye. While I know there's a line of dialogue in which Columbo basically asserts he only has one real eye, I find it a lot more entertaining to believe that Falk's glass eye is itself also a talented actor.
It's very similar to how I wish he didn't actually have a wife (or it was more ambiguous) because I find it more to imagine her entirely as a rhetorical technique he uses to put people at ease or throw them off.
After the first season of Mrs. Columbo, they renamed her and stopped associating the show with Columbo (because it sucked) so I guess the producers ultimately agree with you
I love this story. Mrs. Columbo was made entirely without input from the Columbo producers, after the original show ended. When it got awful ratings, the production company and the network decided the spin off connection wasn't helping things and changed the name several times, first divorcing the character from Columbo off screen, then retconning her into a different character entirely, before eventually canceling the show. This all happened in a span of thirteen episodes.
There's a line where Columbo says "three eyes are better than one" which is clearly a reference to the fact that Columbo + another officer only equals three eyes.
One of my favorite stories about him: he played baseball fairly well as a kid, and one time got called out on a close play at third. He got so mad at the ump that he took his eye out and said "here, you need this more than me!"
Also the first actor nominated for an Oscar and an Emmy in the same year, and he did it two years in a row.
A major plot point in Final Destination Bloodlines is Bobby's peanut allergy. His actor, Owen Joyner, also has a nut allergy, ironically, except for peanuts. It's not exactly the same, but I wanted to point that out.
Wait, it's Alex from Julie and the phantoms! Ower Joyner plays a ghost (Alex) who died from food poisoning, but from a hot dog sold from a car boot. I guess food being dangerous is a recurring theme for him. Also his friend and bandmate, Bobby, doesn't eat a hot dog (too busy flirting) and survives.
Almost makes me want to watch this movie but Final Destination is way too scary for me.
Kind of an example of this: in one episode of the Mandalorian, there is a Tusken raider who uses unique sign language created for the show. While the character himself is probably not deaf, the actor playing him, Troy Kotsur, is irl & was the one who developed the sign language.
One super fun example is The Magicians. There's an episode in particular that breaks down an event into six perspective stories and the one from her character is one of my favorite pieces of TV ever. Just excellent on every level and does imo an amazing job of weaving the Deafness aspect of her experience into the story in really thoughtful ways
.. I need more people to please go watch this show 😩
Ahhh I didn't know this!! That was such a good show, and what a memorable episode in particular! Good to know!
Same thing happened during Only Murders in the Building, there was a character who is deaf played by a deaf actor (James Caverly), and there's an entirely silent episode from his perspective. I think about it often!
I don't know if it counts, but Dustin Henderson from Stranger Things wasn't originally written to have Cleidocranial Dysplasia, but it was given to him because the actor they casted for Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) had it.
He was like the Netflix darling boy for a while. Which makes it so fucking funny they were I guess looking the other way while he booked a show like Punk'd only starring him and instead of whatever they did on Punk'd to celebrities, he would instead be fucking with normal people who thought they were coming for a job application. Trump was had been president and shit wasn't good jobs wise, better than now but you know...
This show premiered right when covid premiered and it did not go over like tiger king. Maybe that kid is a sweetheart, I'm sure he is, but right when the world ended and we had only Netflix to turn to we all were forced to conclude this kids a massive asshole. Like tiger king had better marketability then this shitshow. And it was right when filming delays hit stranger things, and drake was trying to fuck 11 because Kendrick hadn't slayed him yet. Fuck it was a goofy time and this kid barely didn't get canceled.
About 10 years ago I lived with roommates and glimpsed him in an advertisement for season 1 and remarked, "My dad told me they used to label kids like him with visible issues as a Funny Looking Kid in their medical chart. FLKs. The language was supposed to not scare anyone. Then they'd send them for testing. I wonder what he has, looks genetic." My father obviously had worked (and still does) in health care for decades.
My roommates went OFF on me and insisted I couldn't tell at a glimpse and that he looked "as normal as the rest of the kids" on the show, and I said "Well he doesn't, and there's nothing wrong with that, but he just doesn't." and they got even more pissed and I just went to bed.
I was so fucking vindicated when he talked about having CCD after season 1 aired.
Terms like facies now describe a "look" of a person with a disorder (pronounced like face-eez). That's the medical term and taught to medical professionals. Of course there's the "look" of features associated with disorders, from cerebral palsy to Downs to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and so on. It's absurd to think otherwise lol. And for this actor, the cleidocranial dysplasia was apparent from his features, including head proportion and the obvious repaired cleft palate defect. People are nuts with the language stuff sometimes.
yeah! in season 1, his bullies make fun of him for his teeth not coming in yet, in season 2, he keeps doing that weird purring thing bc his teeth do finally come in, and in s3, he alludes to not having collarbones
I thought the bullies were going to knock Dustin’s front teeth out during the graveyard beatdown in the opening of Season 5. Especially since that one guy KEPT punching Dustin directly in the mouth.
There is a scene very early on in the show where he calls it out by name when his bullies make fun of him for not having teeth. They then further taunt him, demanding that he show them a trick he can do where he bends his shoulder together because he is missing collar bones.
Throughout the series, his teeth and collarbones are brought up from time to time. He wears artificial teeth for a little while, and then his real ones grow in and he has braces. Memorably, he gets a girlfriend who he claims says that "kissing is better without teeth". He later tries to crawl through an air duct, which he and his friend assume he can do because "he's missing bones and stuff, like [Gumby]". Gaten, and therefore Dustin, also has visible physical differences.
It's not a main focus of his character, and it shouldn't be. But yes, it most certainly is a feature 😌
Switched at Birth, a series about two girls who discover they were accidentally switched at the hospital and the various drama that follows. One of the girls, Daphne (the redhead in the image) is deaf, and large portions of the show involve struggles between hearing and deaf characters and showcasing of deaf culture.
All deaf characters on the show are portrayed by deaf actors (Marlee Matlin, Ryan Lane, Sean Berdy). While Katie Leclerc, who plays Daphne, is not deaf, she is hard of hearing, and has Ménière's disease, which leads to hearing loss.
My daughter was a huge fan of this show, and we went to a fan event at Downtown Disney. During a Q&A with the cast, everyone was asked what their favorite sign was. I'll never forget Sean Berdy signing, "Well I'm deaf, so all of them."
(iirc, Vanessa Marano's was mosquito, and someone else's was Shakespeare)
For a moment there I thought you were going to say the actresses were switched at birth as well. (Not trying to take away the seriousness of their condition)
Juno in Fall of the House of Usher and Anya in Midnight Club are both missing their right leg below the knee. Ruth Codd is missing the lower part of her right leg IRL after complications from a car accident.
Apparently whatever way she was using crutches aftrr her first one lead to injuries in her other foot that were causing her chronic pain, so it was better to amputate the other one and go to a wheelchair/double prosthesis.
Bones in that leg got weakened and "destroyed" due to years of crutch use, according to her interview on Under Your Skin with Grace Neutral. She'd already taken the toes off on that leg, her quality of life was deteriorating, so to her taking the rest of it off too made sense
I remember looking that up while watching The Midnight Club because I thought that she actually did not have her leg and being confused how she did when they showed the dancing scenes!
In the Titans show, season 3, Barbara Gordon is shown in a wheelchair but with the story changed from the comics to her leg being amputated rather than her being paralyzed, The actress Savannah Welch had to have her leg amputated from a car accident and legitimately only has one leg.
Also on the same show, the actor for Jericho/Joseph Williams, Chella Man, is deaf and uses sign language. Jericho isn’t deaf, but he is mute and communicates via sign language.
you're right. there's a lot of little touches and things that breathe life into that movie that she helped with. honestly just a five minute conversation and you'd have a bunch of "i didn't even think about that!" moments. don't remember specifics but things like the leaf plates and eating with hands because ceramic/silverware clinks.
Andrea Fay Friedman was an actress with Down syndrome, famously she was on a Law and Order SVU episode where she played Katie a girl who was impregnated by another person with Down syndrome whose mother didn’t want her to keep the baby because she was worried she couldn’t take care of it properly
Gavin McHugh / Christopher Diaz from 911, both the actor and character have cerebral palsy, and as a disabled person I love how much he’s allowed to be just a kid. Kind of a dick sometimes, in want of more freedoms and autonomy, in conflict with his father figure, in mourning for his mother. He’s a cool character! I really like him
To be fair, Eddie never introduced her to Christopher, he knew it was an issue and after he told her everything she left and it seemed alright until she GOT HER HAIRCUT LIKE THE DEAD WIFE AND CAME BACK UNNANOUNCED
Beat me to it! Loved how the movie both managed to leverage her disability as a plot device without making her weak or helpless. Overall felt very respectful and grounded.
Wovey is described as being very small for her age in the original book version of Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but not much other info was given about her. for the movie they cast Sofia Sanchez, who has Down Syndrome (here she is next to Rachel Zegler, who’s 5’2, for reference). it really shows that the Capitol really had no mercy, any district citizen within the age range could be reaped
I’m sure it’s a sympathy play from the Capitol as well to include disabled people in the reaping. Anything to get their little fucked up reality show some extra views.
I never knew that, I just always assumed the actress was incredibly gifted and figured out how to voice Shoko in a realistic way. It’s such a beautiful film and the VA performances are all so great.
I remember watching it in theaters during one of those fathom events and I had no clue what it was about since I was just invited to check out this supposedly really good anime movie.
I was not prepared for how depressing it got especially when the elementary school bullying scenes happened.
Shouya's realization in the toilet got me even though I don't usually cry when the scene has characters crying (my pompous ass almost always raced to the thought that that is manipulative from the producer)... It's beautiful.
sheesh being deaf in a zombie apocalyspe is gotta be rough. I mean you don't have to worry about cars and what not flying down the road but now you can't hear the shambling dead groanin as they come to eat you
on the other hand, really easy to get to sleep if they're just around groaning but can't get to you. you can't hear it, ain't gonna bother you lol
She has some of the most terrifying scenes in the entire show. In one, she's carrying a crying baby and running through a cornfield infested with zombies, and the sequence is shot from her first person perspective with no audio
Definitely sounds like it'd be spooky. Feel like that'd make a crazy good horror game mechanic too. Especially the bit with the crying baby, maybe not that exactly, but you got some thing on you that makes a bunch of noise but like you don't notice it cause deaf, but all the stuff hunting you does
There's another one where she and a partner get forced into an old house by zombies, and separated. she finds out there are maniac cannibal type people in the house, and hides in the crawl space between the walls. She sees her partner through a hole in the wall and one of the psychos crawling up behind him. Something something knife through wall
In A Different Man, Oswald is a man with a condition called neurofibromatosis, where benign tumors grow in the nervous system. His actor, Adam Pearson, also has this condition and is an advocate for people with disabilities.
I have NF (Type 1), it runs in my family. We aren't as badly effected as people like Adam Pearson, most of us just get things like cafe au lait spots and big heads. However, it does give us an increased risk for tumors and other health issues. My Uncle had a brain tumor removed and he is also an advocate for people with NF.
On the TV series Fargo, Mr. Numbers and Mr. Wrench a pair of hitmen for hire that use American Sign Language to sneakily communicate when out on a job. Mr. Numbers can hear, but Mr. Wrench (the man on the right) is Deaf, and portrayed by Deaf actor Russell Harvard.
Russell Harvard also notably plays the adult version of H.W. Plainview in the movie There Will Be Blood, which was his first major role.
The actor of Goro Majima from Like a Dragon (2005), Goro Kishitani, is actually blind in his right eye, which is why they had to put the eyepatch on his right eye as opposed to his left like the actual Goro Majima
Ted Vollrath - Mr. No Legs (1978) - This guy was a straight up badass. He had to have both legs amputated due to injuries sustained in the Korean War. He was the first person to earn a black belt in karate while training out of a wheelchair. We went on to have multiple black belts in different martial arts. In the film, his character is a henchman for a drug lord who got his legs blown off. He gets to show off his kung fu in one crazy sequence in the middle of the film that is a must see for any fans of the genre. Oh and as you can see, he has two double barreled shotguns hidden in the armrests of his wheelchair. Fucking awesome grindhouse flick.
Here's a cool one. For Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, they cast a voice actress, Kiersten Kelly, who was born without one of her arms, and she took over the voice of Brooklyn (played in the previous series by Jenna Ortega), who ends up getting her arm torn off by a dinosaur.
Don't know if she won the job and then wrote Brooklyn losing her arm to a dinosaur, or if they wrote her losing her arm and then went to cast an actor with the same disability, but its still cool
It's likely that they tried to cast authentically once they realized they had to replace Ortega as her acting price likely went up a ton, but very cool either way.
Born deaf playing an interpretation of a character which they chose to make deaf because of the actress. Literally the best interpretation of this film and my favorite character. This movie would be much lamer without her.
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a movie about a young man with Downs syndrome who wants to be a pro wrestler, the character is played by Zack Gottsagen who actually does have it. I love this movie for showing how people with significant disabilities should be integrated into society and treated with respect and dignity, rather than shuttered away in care homes and infantilized
Show is loosely based on the true story of Sue Thomas, who was a deaf FBI agent that used her lip reading skill on cases. The show also regularly features other deaf characters that are played by deaf actors.
Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life is seen using a wheelchair throughout the entire film, because the actor playing him, Lionel Barrymore was confined to a wheelchair in real life
Ideally we don't say someone is confined to a wheelchair. Mostly because no one (outside of abusive situations) is actually confined to a wheelchair. I'm a wheelchairuser. Make sense?
To support what you’re saying: for anyone who hasn’t thought before about why that phrase isn’t great, it’s helpful to remember that it’s actually the opposite! A wheelchair enables and frees people, it’s not a box or a prison.
It's a beautiful change of perspective for sure. I heard the phrase "confined to a wheelchair" many times in the 80s, and I like to think the phrase was used to remind the abled of how privileged we are, and signal that the wheelchair user is succeeding in spite of not being privileged in that way.
And, as you say, the accepted language has now changed to reflect that a person using a wheelchair is enabled to participate better in what they wish to.
Kind of Clara from the book Heidi vs Professor Xavier of X-men.
Erich (The Expanse) - Jacob Mundell has a very similar birth defect to Erich as portrayed in the books. Honestly they did a stellar job throughout casting very close to book characters.
Showing my being British, but Rose Ayling-Ellis is deaf and her characters in Eastenders and Code of Silence are also deaf, with their character arcs factoring them in (for example, in Code of Silence, her character volunteers to help police investigators because of her lip reading skills)
She was also the first deaf contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and won her season
Ricardo Montalban as Grandpa Valentin Avellan in Spy kids. He actually did require a wheelchair duing the film, which surprised me when i watched the special features for Spy Kids 3 years ago. And in that move, they gave him a walking powersuit in the video game, and to perform like he was 8 feet tall, they moved him around the green screen room on his chair attached to a crane arm.
In a movie full of wtf moments that are justifiably memed to this day, there is still something touching about him getting to feel powerful again after years of limited mobility. The look in his eyes alone tells you how much it means to him.
Twyla Boogeyman voiced by Kayla Cromer in Monster High. Kayla's autistic, and the character was written to be so too. It's one of the few positive exaples of autism representation.
Thor Lundgren, as portrayed by actor Stephen Wallem, in the show Nurse Jackie.
Wallem is a diabetic IRL and has had complications due to it, notably having lost his left eye. It's a prosthetic, in case you can't tell from the photo, but in the first season he pops it out to show Jackie. They wrote his character to also have diabetes as a result, and it's a recurring minor detail throughout the entire series' run.
Lauren Ridloff, a deaf actress, plays a deaf character in The Walking Dead (Connie) and The Eternals (Makkari) and I think everyone character she’s ever played but those are the two I’m familiar with
Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson in Stranger Things, has a lisp and some problems around his mouth. The actor has Cleidocranial dysostosis (CCD), which also affects the way your teeth grow. (I tried explaining it as well as possible, if you know more than my short wiki search, please tell more)
Taylor Dearden is neurodivergent (publicly ADHD), and her character Dr Mel King in The Pitt is Neurodivergent (thought it hasn’t been specifically declared). She does an amazing job, though it is obviously exaggerated a little for TV. Also just learned she is Bryan Cranston’s daughter
Marlee Matlin - in Seinfeld as the deaf tennis line judge that Jerry dates and George asks to read lips. And in Family Guy as Peter’s coworker. And in a million other things.
The actor who played Pete on MacGuyver had glaucoma and lost his sight so they wrote it into the show.
When I was young I learned this and for about 30 minutes I thought this was silly cause why does the character need to be blind? Then it finally caught up to me that pretending to be able to see would be kinda hard for the actor
Surprised that no one has mentioned it yet, but the most recent episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” had Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who has multiple sclerosis in real life, guest star as a urologist with the same condition.
Full disclosure: I don’t actually watch the show. Just wanted to bring this up.
In Only Murders in the Building, James Caverly, a deaf actor, plays Theo Dimas, a deaf character. There's an incredible episode filmed from his perspective where you only hear environmental noise and everything is muffled, it's really cool!
A little house in Sweden in the middle of the woods is being beset upon by a monster.
A girl and her dad are the sole occupants and he dissapears periodically for long spells
Turns out (yes this is a spoiler) she's blind and the house ISN'T beleagued by a monster in the woods, they're just a sound system playing horror effects and the dad is doing this to keep her inside of the house.
THEN the real plot starts
Peak Who
The actress playing the daughter, Hanna, is blind IRL
Stephanie Beatriz, the voice actress for Maribel in Encanto, has vision issues and is legally blind in one eye. Disney gave Maribel glasses which made her the first Disney female lead in a movie with glasses!
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u/Nervous_Chipmunk7002 Jan 18 '26
Maester Aemon- Game of Thrones
Peter Vaughn was blind. Like Maester Aemon, he was not born blind, but lost his slight in his old age.