The first time Ruth Madeley auditioned for a role on screen, all she could think was, “Why does anyone put themselves through this? This is hideous!”
Luckily, it didn’t last beyond the audition room.
The U.K.-born Madeley was studying screenwriting at the time and had spent nearly her entire life in some kind of spotlight. Born with spina bifida, Madeley has been a disability rights activist since childhood, winning an award for her work and attending meetings at 10 Downing Street at just 13. Describing herself as “like a dog with a bone most of the time,” Madeley has been fighting for the rights of wheelchair users like herself for so long that it’s hard to imagine her being intimidated by much of anything.
“It was when I went on set that I was like, ‘This is where I’m meant to be,’” she tells me on today’s episode. “I was like, ‘There are so many people here, and every single person is working on the same thing.’ It’s that feeling of collaboration, and if one of those elements wasn’t there, everything falls apart.”
Building her career in British television with projects like the TV movie Don’t Take My Baby and the acclaimed miniseries Years and Years, Madeley, 39, became accustomed to being the only wheelchair user or person with a disability on set. That’s one of many things that made her experience on Being Heumann, the new film from Oscar-winning CODA director Sian Heder, so extraordinary. “Access was put in place from the start,” Madeley says of the set for the biopic of pioneering disability rights activist Judy Heumann. “That was a benefit to everyone, not just the disabled cast members. The cameras were able to be wheeled up ramps rather than having to be lifted everywhere, and everyone was like, ‘This is great! Why don’t we have ramps everywhere?’ I’m like, ‘I know, right?’”
Set in 1977, Apple’s Being Heumann focuses on the historic 28-day occupation of a San Francisco federal building by disability rights activists to push for a bill that would require expanded access around the country — ramps included. The cast — led by Madeley as Heumann and including dozens of actors with disabilities whom you’ve probably never seen before — makes the sit-in feel meaningful but also fun. There are chants and songs and romantic encounters and a guide for how to have sex in a wheelchair, all of which were real parts of the 1977 sit-in, the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history.
“It’s such a revolutionary thing, shockingly, right?” Madeley says. “So many people think that disability is really sad and painful and traumatic, and it can be all of those things. But there’s also so much joy in that community as well. And I think that was really important to Sian, to show those beautiful moments of community and joy and collaboration and humor.”
I talk to Madeley about how she took on leading a film of this scale, why you can’t necessarily just take a break in your trailer when you’re first on the call sheet and why she’s finally convinced that the acting wave she’s been riding for the past 10 years isn’t going to end any time soon.
The episode also includes the latest installment of our series diving deep into the acting races, with Awards Watch’s Erik Anderson and Ryan McQuade joining Christopher Rosen and me to look at the state of play in best supporting actor, where it might be anyone’s game — unless I’m right that there’s an obvious frontrunner hiding in plain sight. (Hint: His name rhymes with Schmobert Schmattinson.) Listen and tell me if you agree!
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