“Working with him in rehearsal is like being in the presence of a mad scientist,” Kurs said by email. He played Cyrano de Bergerac and starred in “American Buffalo.”ĭJ Kurs, director of Deaf West, remembers first being “utterly drawn in by Kotsur’s magnetism” in “Streetcar.” Many times since, he’s seen Kotsur’s immersive process close up. In one show, he met his wife, the actress Deanne Bray. Beginning with “Of Mice and Men” in 1994, Kotsur has acted in some 20 productions at Deaf West, the nonprofit Los Angeles theater company founded in 1991.
With few opportunities in television and film available for deaf actors, Kotsur found freedom on the stage. He studied acting at Gallaudet University, and then toured with the National Theatre of the Deaf. His father, a police chief, would later fondly call Kotsur a “risk taker” for pursuing performing.
CODA 2 COST TV
With little TV programming accessible to him, Kotsur loved highly visual cartoons like “Tom and Jerry” and would animatedly retell them to his deaf classmates on the bus. Kotsur’s long road to the Oscars began, he figures, in elementary school. Sean Penn threatens to ‘smelt’ Oscars if Ukraine’s Zelenskyy doesn’t get chance to speak at Academy Awards
“Of course, I didn’t realize what a tough journey it would be going through show business.” “I felt like I could have hope as a deaf actor,” Kotsur remembered in an interview by Zoom from his home in Mesa, Arizona, through an interpreter. Kotsur remembers watching Matlin become the first deaf actor to win an Oscar, in 1987 for “Children of a Lesser God.” In “CODA,” they play the parents of a deaf Gloucester fishing family with a hearing daughter. The only one to ever go through something similar was Kotsur’s “CODA” co-star Marlee Matlin. I feel like I can die happy, with a smile on my face.” “It’s just overwhelming,” Kotsur says of the acclaim. Accepting the Gotham award for best supporting performance, he told the crowd that he wasn’t speechless but “absolutely handless right now.” When he was nominated for a BAFTA, he celebrated so much he fell out of his chair. The rush of accolades has been discombobulating. He’s the first deaf actor ever nominated individually for a Screen Actors Guild award. The Apple TV+ release “CODA,” Sian Heder’s best-picture nominee, has elevated Kotsur to Hollywood’s biggest stages while making history for the Deaf community. “I hope that young people who happen to be deaf or hard of hearing can get an increased confidence and be inspired that they can pursue their dreams,” Kotsur says. And like that “Go!” the 53-year-old Kotsur hopes his achievement resonates with inspiration. Kotsur, who does indeed radiate a rumpled warmth, is just the second actor who is deaf to be nominated for an Academy Award. “One person described it as feeling like being cozy and tucked in bed.” “Sometimes I’ll ask hearing audience members what my voice sounds like,” signs Kotsur. Years before, as Stanley Kowalski in a Deaf West Theatre production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” he exclaimed “Stella!” night after night.
CODA 2 COST PLUS
Urging his daughter, played by Emilia Jones, to pursue her dreams of singing and attending college, he says aloud: “Go!”įor Kotsur, that one line meant lots of rehearsal plus the courage to, on a film set, speak dialogue he couldn’t himself hear. In his Oscar-winning performance in “CODA,” Kotsur has one spoken line, but it’s a good one. Troy Kotsur’s road to making history at the Oscars He beat out fellow nominees Ciarán Hinds, Jesse Plemons, J.K.
“This is for the Deaf community, the CODA community and the disabled community,” said Kotsur, signing from the stage. Oscars swag: What’s inside the nominees’ six-figure gift bag
0 kommentar(er)
