Creatives With Disabilities Building Careers and Changing Industry

Being noticed in Hollywood is a challenge for any creative. But being seen when you’re a disabled creative is exponentially more difficult. Yet when Autumn Best, who was born with a limb difference, landed a key role in Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, “Woman of the Hour,” Best not only found work — she played a nondisabled character.

“[Kendrick] was really collaborative about it,” recalls Best, whose character was based on a real person who was nondisabled, a feat in and of itself. “There are a lot of cool close-up shots of my hand in the movie that you won’t miss, and it’s really cool that she didn’t shy away from showing it — but it also didn’t have to become like, let’s write this into the character and make it a thing.”

Best was one of five artists who gathered as part of a series of conversations presented by Easterseals Disability Services, the largest disability services organization in California. The actor joined Peter Farrelly (writer and producer, “Dear Santa”), Marissa Bode (actor, “Wicked”), Amber Sealey (director, “Out of My Mind”) and Lauren “Lolo” Spencer (actor, “The Sex Lives of College Girls”) in a panel that aimed to elevate and deepen the conversation about the roles in front of and behind the camera for disabled creatives and those who want to make space for them.

What Authentic Storytelling Looks Like 

Easterseals released “Reimagining Hollywood: A New Lens on Disability Inclusion,” a multimedia report providing an in-depth exploration of the progress made and the challenges still to be addressed in disability inclusion and authentic storytelling in Hollywood. This report follows up on the 2018 “Abilities Unlimited” report, a collaboration between Easterseals and Variety, which highlighted not only the need for greater inclusion of people with disabilities in Hollywood but also their potential as a largely untapped market. 

The work starts with casting, said Farrelly, who shared how he tries to reach out to multiple casting directors for his films: “When you read a script and it says, ‘Girlfriend comes into the room,’ it used to be in the old days they would picture a white woman — and now they don’t. … Well, that’s going to be the same way for disability.” 

According to a 2024 report, people with disabilities represent 28.7% of the viewing and purchasing audience in the U.S. (more than 70 million people), and about 16% of the world’s population (1.3 billion people). 

That makes them the “largest minority in the country,” Sealey said. Yet, as a 2024 Hollywood diversity report indicates, that group only makes up 4.7% of streaming film actors and 7.1% of theatrical film actors.  

Noted Spencer, who was diagnosed with ALS at age 14, the real goal is not just to cast self-identified disabled actors. It’s about acknowledging that people with disabilities are people first. She noted, “The challenge that a lot of people have is when they think of disabled actors or disabled characters in a story, their story has to be predicated on the fact that they have a disability. That’s where I feel the block tends to happen.”

Some filmmakers are making that happen, including Sealey who identifies as neurodivergent. With “Out of My Mind,” she wanted to tell the story of a “tween who has hopes and dreams, anxieties, fears and crushes, and be a full person who just happens to have cerebral palsy.”

Raising Voices Still a Necessity for Disabled 

The idea that nearly 30 percent of Americans are underrepresented in films — or represented only in terms of their disability — should alert studios whose projects struggle to find audiences. Studies show that people with disabilities are an untapped market and make up a large section of the viewing and purchasing audience.

Yet the onus remains unfairly on disabled creatives to make themselves heard. Spencer said she got noticed thanks to her self-produced content online. “I’ve come to a certain place in my life of recognizing that if I want to play a particular role, I’m just going to have to write it myself,” she said.

As a filmmaker, Farrelly regularly watches online videos to find people he wants to work with. “Even if I don’t like the story, I’m seeing an actor or an actress and I’m like, ‘Oh, that person’s good. Put ’em on the list.’ And I remember them.”

Nondisabled Creatives Must Be Open to Education 

Frustratingly, the disabled community often finds that it’s lack of knowledge about their members — and an inability or unwillingness to learn by nondisabled creatives — that serves as industry gatekeeping.

Bode, who uses a wheelchair for mobility in her daily life and in “Wicked,” said that having a disability coordinator, who has lived experience with disability, on her film “made a huge difference. … Nobody knows us better than us.”

Sealey insisted that “the entire production was going to be accessible” for her leading actor. “It didn’t cost more money. It didn’t take more time,” she said. “We had [digital imaging technicians] coming up to us and saying, ‘I need a special kind of screen monitor for my eyes. I’ve always been afraid to ask for this before because I thought maybe I wouldn’t get hired.’”

But education starts way before production begins, by including disabled creatives in the casting and writers’ rooms. “Our identities are, of course, important to our stories,” said Bode, “but that’s not all that we are. … Listening and being open-minded and really questioning yourself and unlearning potentially your own internalized ableism and understanding — why can’t it be this way?”

The Future Looks … Brighter? 

It is useful to acknowledge that the industry is making strides. Organizations like Easterseals continue to elevate the voices and presence of the disability community.

Still, there is a long way to go to ensure disabled creatives are part of every level of the industry.

“We can think about authenticity being where everybody has a story inside of them and everybody should have this space and time to tell their own story,” Sealey said. “I would like to see people who identify as [disabled] feel welcomed into Hollywood and feel like they get to tell the stories that they want to tell — that are not just about their disabilities. That are about their lives.”

Easterseals’ new special report, “Reimagining Hollywood,” is out now.