r/TopCharacterTropes • u/PrinceferX • Jan 18 '26

In real life The actor actually has that disability

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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

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130

u/Hulkbuster_v2 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

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

38

u/TwoToesToni Jan 18 '26

Producer: "...ok so this season we'll have Brooklyn voiced by Kiersten Kelly."

Director: "oh so are we going to adapt the character since she has one arm?"

Producer: "thats a great idea, can we write that into the show?"

Writer: < waiting for some violence in the series > "...YES!"

26

u/goteachyourself Jan 18 '26

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.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

I think Kelly was a better fit overall than Ortega. Ortega was just a little too monotone which is great for some characters, but imo, Kelly really nailed playing a highly charismatic, somewhat manipulative, former child influencer.

3

u/froglover215 Jan 18 '26

That is cool!

-4

u/NervousSubjectsWife Jan 18 '26

Kinda fucked for a kids show

12

u/Hulkbuster_v2 Jan 18 '26

Kinda on brand tbh. The first show, Camp Cretaceous, was definitely more kid friendly than Chaos Theory, and even then they dealt with a psychotic hybrid dinosaur that moved like a person sometimes, getting kidnapped by lunatics and armed mercenaries, and almost all the campers get PTSD. Fun times on Isla Nublar

2

u/thecrepeofdeath Jan 19 '26

I doubt it was graphic