(upbeat music)
- Well, it's, the thing about it is;
you're dealing with a lot.
You're dealing, not only are you playing drums,
you're learning sign language,
you're dealing with a lot of issues.
What was the challenge of kind of creating this character
and making him feel so real and so connected,
you know, relatable?
- I think, you know,
so much of the work is done in Darius's writing.
You know, it's a beautiful script,
full of rich relationships and a really specific world.
So then I guess the challenges after that, you know,
as it always is,
kind of a split between the more technical,
and the more emotional.
- Mm-hmm
So on the technical side, you know,
Darius said he wanted it all to be for real,
which was music to my ears, you know, as an actor,
really learning a skill and living in it is, amazing.
If you could do that.
So I spent seven and a half months learning the drums,
and learning American sign language.
And, and so that was more technical aspects.
And then emotionally, I guess, you know, it was about,
I guess, just trying to find those overlaps
between you and the character and
leaning into the scariest, scariest parts of those.
- Yeah, it honestly, the moment in the film where you,
you know, the buzzing,
that first moment where you have buzzing,
it's such a real, real reaction.
And I've seen people go through this kind of thing
when they're facing these kinds of challenges.
Do you know people that have gone through it?
Did you kind of find something to work with?
- Yeah, so I spent a lot of time within the deaf community.
I was being mentored by Jeremy Stone,
who was my sign instructor.
And we also spoke to people who had chosen to have
cochlear implants, people who had chosen not to,
people who were late deafened,
people who were blind deaf, children of deaf adults,
I guess ultimately, you know,
you try and draw on your own experiences as well.
You try and draw on your own experiences of
feeling destabilized or feeling like lost
your idea of who you are.
And, and I think actually that core of,
of emotional confusion is one that a lot of people
can relate to in this pandemic.
- You know, if you think about Ruben's journey,
he's a workaholic who has a health crisis,
forced into a kind of purgatory of
assessing what really matters.
That's kind of what the arc for our whole culture
has been a whole society.
You know, this go, go, go society,
where we've all now, been put on pause
and kind of forced to kind of think about,
what really matters, you know.
- For Sure. It is a very strange time,
especially I would assume for an actor,
when you're, you know, looking for work,
going out there and getting out there again,
that must be a bizarre feeling a little bit.
- It's strange, but you know, I think,
hopefully all the chat challenges in the end,
the kind of clarifying challenges at the end,
the kind of gifts, if you're able to receive them,
they can be very very difficult to hold, these gifts.
They can be scarring and bruising and tragic,
but ultimately we don't choose
the cards that life deals us. Right?
And, and something that I've learned
from the deaf community is that, you know, just,
I think the deaf community has so much to teach
the hearing community. You know.
They're so often overlooked within our industry, but in,
you know, mainstream culture in general.
And that's something that I think I learned was that,
the challenges can be the gifts. You know,
I think I truly learned the meaning of the word
communication from the deaf community, you know,
understanding what it is, to not hide behind words,
but to embody what you are saying, physically.
Learned the meaning of the word community, you know,
from deaf community in New York.
So it's, it's, to me, I think that, you know,
a lesson in this film, for the audiences,
but also for me as someone when Ruben's journey is,
is how these challenges can be, blessings,
in such unexpected ways.
And in ways that can be scary to embrace.