CODA's financiers balked at casting deaf actors until Marlee Matlin threatened to quit
When CODA was being put together, the money men wanted hearing actors for the deaf roles. Marlee Matlin, the first cast member signed, said she would walk unless deaf performers played them. The backers gave in, and the film went on to win Best Picture, with Troy Kotsur taking an Oscar too.
Sian Heder's film remakes the 2014 French hit La Famille Bélier, moving it from a dairy farm to the fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, a town she knew from childhood summers. Emilia Jones plays Ruby Rossi, the only hearing member of her family, torn between interpreting for her parents' struggling fishing business and chasing a place at Berklee College of Music. Heder learned American Sign Language while writing, and about 40 percent of the script ended up in it.
Matlin drew on her links with Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles to help find the rest of the cast. Heder spotted Kotsur, who plays Ruby's father, in one of its productions, and Daniel Durant, the brother, made his feature debut. Jones spent nine months on voice lessons and signing before shooting in mid-2019, and interpreters rotated on set so cast and crew could talk.
The film premiered at Sundance in January 2021, where Apple paid a festival-record $25 million for it, and it streamed on Apple TV+ that August. Critics praised the script and Kotsur's performance, although deaf viewers were divided. At the climax, Ruby signs as she sings Joni Mitchell's Both Sides, Now at her audition, so her family watching from the balcony can follow the words.
At the 94th Academy Awards it won all three categories it was nominated in: Best Picture, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay. It was the first Best Picture winner distributed by a streaming service and the first to premiere at Sundance, and Kotsur became the first deaf man to win an Academy Award. A stage musical was being developed as of 2024.
Source: CODA (2021 film)
