The Partnership: Siân Heder And Marlee Matlin On The Importance Of Casting Deaf Talent for ‘CODA’: “For So Long We’ve Been Overlooked”
The 2014 French drama La Famille Bélier centered on a young woman growing up in a family with deaf parents, but for the most part the filmmakers cast hearing actors to play the deaf roles. Writer-director Siân Heder was determined not to take that same approach when she set about making CODA, her award-winning adaptation of the French film, and thus began her collaboration with actress Marlee Matlin. Heder cast the Oscar winner as mom Jackie Rossi, along with fellow deaf actors Troy Kotsur as husband Frank, and Daniel Durant as son Leo, while hearing actress Emilia Jones plays Ruby Rossi, the titular ‘CODA’—an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults.