Troy Kotsur – Advocating for Onscreen Authenticity

Jay Ruderman:
Hey all my listeners, this episode is a very special one. We are honored to have the academy award winning actor – Troy Kotsur with us as a guest. I spoke with Troy through his ASL interpreter, Justin Mauer, so the voice you will be hearing throughout this episode will be his, but the words and thoughts are all Troy’s of course. If you want to get a better sense of how this happened – maybe you know ASL and would like to see Troy sign directly, or you’d like to share it with a friend or relative who is deaf – just head over to YouTube.com forward slash @therudermanfamilyfoundation. Ok, and on to the show.

Troy Kotsur:
I remember my dad’s last sentence before he passed, and I asked my dad, “Hey, what do you want me to do?” And he said, “Just do what’s best for your children.” That was his last sentence before he passed actually. It was unforgettable. “Just do what’s best for your child.” And so I do my best for my child. I’ve tried my best as a dad.

Jay Ruderman:
Troy Kotsur is an Academy Award-winning actor. He’s acted on Broadway, in hit shows like Criminal Minds, and the award-winning film CODA. But that’s not his voice you’re hearing. It’s his interpreter. Troy is a proud member of the deaf community. He had the support he needed as a child, but he said that’s not the case for all deaf children.

Troy Kotsur:
Most hearing parents of deaf children are not willing to learn sign language to communicate with their children. Instead, they try and “fix” them. And so I think it’s an important message for families out there to hear. It’s not just about deafness, but it just it’s about love and communication and caring about what’s best for your children.

Jay Ruderman:
In spite of his solid family foundation, Troy’s success didn’t come easily.

Troy Kotsur:
I really wanted to show that we have diversity and that we are talented deaf actors. We’re actors who just happened to be deaf. I just happened to be a deaf man. And I really had to keep the faith through the years. It was really tough. There was a lot of struggle.

Jay Ruderman:
That lack of representation impacts not only deaf artists, but the authenticity of the stories themselves.

Troy Kotsur:
Really, it’s almost impossible to match our authentic performance, if you know what I mean, because we have that entire lifetime of that lived experience. We know all the nuance of that lived experience.

Jay Ruderman:
And it’s not just having deaf actors in front of the cameras. That diversity of experience is vital in all aspects of production. Troy has made it part of his work to ensure that other deaf artists have more access than he did.

Troy Kotsur:
I want more deaf professionals so I can die with a smile on my face and see that Hollywood’s finally improved and there’s more room for us deaf professionals to be creative.

Jay Ruderman:
Welcome Academy Award winner, Troy Kotsur, to All About Change. And we are also joined by ASL interpreter, Justin Mauer. Good to see you.

Troy Kotsur:
Nice to see you too, Jay. Hello everyone. Thank you for having me.

Jay Ruderman:
Troy, you’ve mentioned in previous interviews that you’ve suffered from language deprivation as a child due to lack of ASL. And you say that learning ASL saved your life. What is language deprivation?

Troy Kotsur:
I’m extremely fortunate. When I was younger, I did not have language deprivation, but I had so many friends that I grew up with who were deaf who happened to have experienced language deprivation. Most hearing parents of deaf children are not willing to learn sign language to communicate with their children. Instead, they try and “fix” them. And so if you don’t have access to language before you enter elementary school, these children can really be left behind. It’s so important to have that language exposure at a young age. And the reason why I say ASL saved my life is because I was able to learn how to read and write math and all of the subjects in school basically through ASL. And so ASL is the language that taught me. ASL is not a written language, but teachers using ASL were able to communicate with me visually. And that’s why it was extremely important for me as a child. And it’s important for folks to be aware of that. Over 30 states have recently passed a law saying that children from zero to five must be learning a language before entering kindergarten. I’m very pleased to hear that and hope that it expands to all 50 states.

Jay Ruderman:
That’s wonderful. And I wanted to ask you, why do you feel that it is important that hearing people have access and learn ASL?

Troy Kotsur:
Well, it’s a very friendly way to communicate in your environment wherever you happen to go. I’ve noticed that ASL is becoming more and more popular at the high school level as well as colleges and universities. It’s being considered as a foreign language in foreign language departments. Or when I go to a restaurant or to Starbucks or the airport, it’s so nice to bump into someone who happens to learn sign language in any situation. And so there’s less and less emphasis on using a pen and paper or texting on a phone to communicate. So it’s wonderful to be bilingual, to have English and sign language together and be able to go seamlessly through life that way. ASL is really a gift that folks are able to learn a different perspective. And as deaf people, we have our own culture and we have our own language. And so it’s wonderful to increase awareness and for hearing folks to learn our language.

Jay Ruderman:
And just to be clear, ASL is for Americans, that if I go to another country, let’s say Mexico or Canada, well, I don’t know about Canada, but if you go to Mexico, their sign language is going to be different than American sign language.

Troy Kotsur:
Yes, you’re correct. It’s a myth that sign language is universal and there’s one universal language. There’s over 300 different types of sign languages worldwide, including Japan, China, Russia, all over the African and European continents. And it’s fascinating. It’s truly amazing. But just like spoken languages, every country has its own sign language as well as dialects. There is one type of international sign language that does exist for international conferences that we’ve developed so we can understand each other. And that is amazing that we’re able to communicate worldwide, but folks aren’t quite completely fluent in this international sign yet. And American sign language isn’t standardized either. We have dialects in different states and even different signs in different regional areas. And so it’s similar to your spoken dialects and accents. You can hear if someone’s from the south or from the east coast or you have a New York accent, we have something similar in sign language. And so we can see that a deaf person from New York would use a different type of sign than someone from California. So it’s nice to have that diversity in America too.

Jay Ruderman:
That’s so fascinating. I did want to tell you that my daughter, who is hearing, did learn ASL in high school. I don’t know if she became fluent, but I’m so proud that she took that course and saw it as something important to study.

Troy Kotsur:
Absolutely. It’s extremely important. I’m so proud that ASL is becoming more and more popular all over the country. And as you mentioned, your daughter is learning sign language. My daughter’s a real life CODA. She’s hearing. She’s a child of deaf adults. Her first language was sign language before she could speak. And so she was bilingual growing up. And my interpreter Justin is a CODA too. His parents were deaf and he grew up with sign language as his first language.

Jay Ruderman:
So I wanted to ask you about entertainment. You’ve said that in interviews that when you grew up, that captioning was not common. What type of entertainment were you interested in as a child and how did you consume that entertainment?

Troy Kotsur:
When I was younger, TV became my best friend because everyone in my family were hearing, they were busy. Sometimes they didn’t really have their skills and sign language quite developed yet. So when I was young, I remember watching Tom and Jerry cartoons because it was visual communication and had a lot of action. Imagine watching something like Godzilla as a kid. I was like, “Oh, that’s cool. There’s so much action in Godzilla.” I was looking for something that was fun to watch visually and that would influence my imagination as a storyteller. My friends and I told stories to each other recounting what we had watched. There was no close captioning, but there were silent films, Charlie Chaplin for example.

Troy Kotsur:
In silent films, they’d have these captions pop up so that hearing and deaf audiences could enjoy them. And then when the talkies came out, the deaf community became segregated, a segregated audience that didn’t have any access to TV or film and we had to wait until the ’80s and ’90s really before access was improved. And now we’re able to see all films just like hearing people can. With our film CODA that was released, it was a perfect example of bringing these two worlds together. And so we were able to share our cultures and our languages in the same place at the same time. And so we were able to gain this mutual understanding. And that’s what you saw on screen and that’s what you saw an audience’s reaction to our film.

Jay Ruderman:
That’s so great. We’ve made so many advances that are positive for all communities. I also wanted to ask you, what inspired your interest in performing?

Troy Kotsur:
Well, when I was younger as I mentioned earlier, from watching Tom and Jerry. Imagine reading a book and getting that knowledge and spreading that knowledge. I was spreading that storytelling to my friends on the school bus on the way to the school for the death and all of my friends would laugh and feel good. It was just fun to tell these stories, recounting these Tom and Jerry episodes. So my inspiration began from there and continued through the years. I was really looking for a place where I’d have the opportunity to be an artist or work in TV or film, and I realized that 99.9% of folks working in TV and film were hearing including the folks at the studio level. So it was nearly impossible for a deaf actor to get these opportunities, and it was really hard for me to find work. So the right place for me to work was the theater stage. And then when Marlee won the Oscar in the late ’80s, it was a huge step for Hollywood. And then after our film CODA, I’m seeing more and more opportunities and awareness in ASL beginning to grow and folks popping up in different TV shows. Alaqua Cox, who’s indigenous and deaf just appeared in Marvel’s Echo on Disney Plus. And so I’m seeing more and more opportunities beginning to grow.

Jay Ruderman:
That’s awesome. Troy, you’re from Arizona. There’s been a lot of back and forth about the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind. Why do you think that school has been under attack?

Troy Kotsur:
So I grew up attending the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf and Blind. It’s under ASDB, the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind, and that’s where I had my first exposure to sign language, and just like I mentioned, learning all of these subjects through education in ASL. I can’t imagine these schools shutting down. As we mentioned, language deprivation and young deaf folks struggling to find their, there are so many schools all over the country and all over the state, and so I’m wondering why they’ve targeted a school that has focused in specific education for the deaf. I’m concerned about the future of our deaf children. I want them to have access to education in their natural language.

Troy Kotsur:
I remember meeting these parents that had two young deaf children and who were quite nervous about the threat to Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind. And their parents had learned sign language, they were in tears and so worried about where their daughter could go because these deaf kids need a social environment and the best place for that for deaf kids is at the School for the Deaf. So my heart goes out to them so I needed to make my voice heard and I went to the state capitol in Arizona to help them fight for continued funding for their school. And I’m grateful that the senators there appeared to listen to our voices. It was an interesting experience. I never thought that we’d have issues like that exist and those types of budget cuts for schools for the deaf. Because I’m data, I know what’s best for deaf kids being deaf myself.

Troy Kotsur:
Regarding why they are trying to threaten the funding for that school, is because they’re trying to put everyone with disabilities into the same category and put all disabled kids into some type of statewide special ed program. And so disabled people are not a monolith. We’re not all the same. We have different needs. My wife is an ASL teacher. She noticed that they sent quite a few special ed kids into her class thinking that ASL would be a great fit for all disabled kids, which it isn’t. It’s just another language, right? And so there needs to be that new type of consideration, a way of thinking and improvements, that we’re not a monolith and we have specific needs that schools for the deaf are currently fitting. And I hope that the school will not be under threat again. This happens to be in my hometown when I grew up and it would be heartbreaking to see that school close. So I think it’s important that it is their right to have education in their language of ASL, and no one should take that right away.

Jay Ruderman:
Well, I want to commend you on your activism. And I hope that the school remains successful and opened and a resource for children who need it. I wanted to ask you, what do you think you gained from your time there?

Troy Kotsur:
The social aspect obviously because we were able to communicate in our own language, so we have that mutual understanding. 24 hours a day we were able to communicate in ASL. Many kids live in the dorms just because kids live all over the state, and so they tend to stay at the school during the week and on weekends go back to their families. And so we had that socialization, we had sport., our coaches were fluent in sign language. Our teachers were fluent in sign language. And so really that’s the best atmosphere. That was the best benefit for me, to develop my own identity, my own language, and my skill as a storyteller. That came from socialization with other deaf kids and storytelling on the bus and storytelling on campus rather than having to wait sometimes days or weeks to even see another deaf person. And so that social aspect I think is invaluable.

Jay Ruderman:
Troy, I want to ask you about CODA. That film had such an enormous impact, not just in terms of storytelling, but in terms of representation. What did that experience mean to you?

Troy Kotsur:
CODA was a life-changing experience for me. It was the first time that I was able to be part of a project where deaf culture, deaf language, and deaf actors were truly centered and respected. It wasn’t just about including a deaf character, it was about telling a story from our perspective, authentically.

Troy Kotsur:
Working with the cast and crew, we were able to collaborate in a way that honored both ASL and spoken English. It brought two worlds together. And I think audiences felt that authenticity. They connected with the story on a deeper level because it was real.

Jay Ruderman:
And you won an Academy Award for your performance. What went through your mind in that moment?

Troy Kotsur:
It was overwhelming. I was thinking about my journey, all the struggles, all the years of trying to find opportunities as a deaf actor. I was thinking about my community, the deaf community, and what this moment meant for all of us.

Troy Kotsur:
I also thought about my family, my father, my daughter. It was a moment of pride, but also a moment of responsibility. I knew that this wasn’t just about me. It was about opening doors for others.

Jay Ruderman:
And do you feel like things have changed since CODA? Are there more opportunities now?

Troy Kotsur:
Yes, I do see change happening. There is more awareness, more interest in telling diverse stories, including stories from the deaf community. I’m seeing more deaf actors getting opportunities, more projects incorporating ASL.

Troy Kotsur:
But we still have a long way to go. Change doesn’t happen overnight. We need to continue advocating, continue pushing for inclusion, for accessibility, for authentic representation.

Jay Ruderman:
What would you say to young deaf individuals who dream of becoming actors or pursuing creative careers?

Troy Kotsur:
I would say, believe in yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something because of your deafness. Your experience, your language, your culture—these are strengths, not weaknesses.

Troy Kotsur:
Find your community, find mentors, keep learning, keep practicing. And most importantly, don’t give up. It may be difficult, but your voice—your story—matters.

Jay Ruderman:
Troy, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story. It’s been an honor.

Troy Kotsur:
Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.

Jay Ruderman:
Thank you so much for listening to All About Change. Today’s episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. Stay tuned for our next episode. Spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We’d really appreciate it. That’s all for now. I’m Jay Ruderman, and we’ll see you soon with another episode of All About Change.

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