The Hollywood Reporter: Paul Feig, Marlee Matlin, Ramy Youssef, Lauren Ridloff and More Support Call to Hire Fewer Consultants, More Disabled Creatives Offscreen

Ali Stroker, Ryan O'Connell, Jason Katims and Sian Heder were also among those who signed an open letter from the Inevitable Foundation, a nonprofit focused on supporting mid-career disabled screenwriters.

Image Description: Four photographs, from L to R: Paul Feig, a white man with grey hair in glasses and a tux; Marlee Matlin, a blonde woman with a bob wearing a black suit jacket, black top and a diamond necklace; Ramy Youssef, a man with curly brown hair and a mustache, wearing a black beanie, beige suit jacket and white shirt patterned with flowers; Lauren Ridloff, a Black woman with long, dark curly hair wearing a sequined brown one-shoulder top.

By Abbey White

Marlee Matlin, Ramy Youssef, Lauren Ridloff, Ryan O’Connell and Ali Stroker are among the Hollywood names supporting the Inevitable Foundation’s open letter calling on the industry to shift away from relying on disability consultants and instead hire creatives with disabilities on film and TV projects.

A total of 35 deaf, disabled and allied writers, actors, showrunners and producers signed their names to the letter written and published by the Inevitable Foundation’s co-founders Marisa Torelli-Pedevska and Richie Siegel as part of their new Hire Disabled Writers, Not Just A Disability Consultant initiative.

Paul Feig, Jason Katims, Sian Heder, Liz Tigelaar, Krista Vernoff, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, Josh Feldman, Shoshannah Stern and Timothy Omundson also backed the open letter, pledging to, in their own creative capacities, put more disabled creatives in positions of power and move away from the consultant model. It’s a system frequently used “instead of — not in addition to — hiring disabled writers, directors and producers to lead these projects,” according to the foundation.

(Carol Barbee, Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone, Cooper Raif, Craig Thomas, Daniel Durant, David Renaud, David Shore, Debra J. Fisher, Jack Thorne, Jaclyn Moore, Jason Orley, John Zinman, Jorge Gutierrez, Kay Oyegun, Lake Bell, Mickey Sumner, Millicent Simmonds, Robia Rashid, Scott Silveri and Tanya Saracho are among the letter’s remaining notable signatories.)

“Disabled writers, directors, and actors are rarely hired to work on projects that feature disabled characters because studios and production companies have prioritized hiring disability consultants,” the letter reads. “At the same time, the industry often sees disabled creatives as only worth considering for projects that have disabled characters, and they’re rarely considered for projects that leverage their unique perspectives and life experience beyond their disability. This perpetual employment limbo leaves disabled creatives without agency over their own stories or careers.”

In the letter, the nonprofit, which focuses on supporting mid-career disabled writers in Hollywood, explains how the consultancy model many productions currently use enables financial and hiring inequity, doing a disservice to both stories and careers. “A disability consultant who is offered $500 on a project to provide notes on multiple drafts of a script and to advise on various representation issues — an above-average rate for a disability consultant — would earn just 1 percent of the salary of a staff writer who is working in a 16-week writers room, according to the rates in the soon-to-expire WGA minimum basic agreement,” the letter notes.

The letter also highlights how more than 20 percent of the U.S. population identifies as having some form of a disability. Disabled writers represent just 0.15 percent of first-look and overall deals, 3 percent of upper-level television writers according to the Think Tank for Inclusion & Equity, and less than 1 percent of the Writers Guild of America, per publicly available data published by the Hollywood union. “There are so few disabled directors in the Directors Guild of America that they don’t track the data,” Torelli-Pedevska and Siegel add.

The letter underscores the ongoing realities of underrepresentation among creatives with disabilities in Hollywood and says that while authentic casting has seen an increase over the last several years, it “is still not a replacement for having disabled talent in positions of power on a project.”

A proposed solution is leaning on the Inevitable Foundation’s Concierge service, which has already “fielded close to 500 requests from more than 140 different executives and showrunners” in addition to helping writers staff and set up projects at major studios and generated “over 125 general meetings at leading studios, networks, streamers and production companies.”

It also points to the nonprofit’s Disabled Consultant Futures Fund, which “radically increases the leverage of disabled creatives who are asked to consult by providing them a back-up offer to confidently negotiate to be hired as writers, directors and actors.” And if achieving their desired role is ultimately not possible, the Fund buys back their time, paying them “150 percent of the first offer to fund their own creative pursuits.”

The Hire Disabled Writers, Not Just A Disability Consultant initiative is the latest effort by the Inevitable Foundation to support disabled Hollywood offscreen talent and their equitable treatment in the industry, from job opportunities to pay. Their other work additionally includes a groundbreaking cost of accommodations report, several fellowships and grant programs with entities like Netflix and Spotify, tools and resources geared towards supporting talent and reform within productions in terms of both business and creative demands.