Lucas Grabeel: You know, they always say, like, when you see on interviews and stuff, people talking about how great the cast and the crew is and how much fun it is, but really this is actually an honest group of people here that—
Lizzy Weiss: We actually like each other.
Vanessa Marano: Yeah.
Lucas Grabeel: We really do like each other, and we have a great time. And so, it’s really nice!
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Question: So you’re learning how to sing in sign language.
Lucas Grabeel: Yes. Yes.
Sean Berdy: Bravo.
Vanessa Marano: But seriously, Lucas has picked up on it faster than anybody.
Lizzy Weiss: Anybody.
Vanessa Marano: Actually, which is really frustrating for the people, who actually sign.
Sean Berdy: I agree.
Lucas Grabeel: The funny thing is,half of us, you know, we can get away with, like, messing up things and not doing it right. And I actually end up ‑‑ there’s always an ASL guy on set to make sure that we’re always doing everything perfectly. And with us ‑‑ he’s actually told me a couple times like, “Okay, that’s too good. You wouldn’t actually be able to do it that well, you know, just learning it over the next” ‑‑ “the first few months.”
Question: Katie, how did it feel to you to have that go on for someone who didn’t really have that many credits at that point to suddenly get this very major, very emotional role?
Katie Leclerc: Are you kidding me? It is a dream come true. Every day is a new lesson in gratitude. I’m so thankful. I had been acting for about ten years before I got this part, and I’m just thankful for the people that I’m surrounded with every day.
Vanessa Marano: When I read the script, I literally went they’re never going to find this girl. What? This beautiful, talented actress who’s deaf or hard of hearing and fluent in American Sign Language. Good luck, both of you. She was, like, the second person cast. And I’m so thankful that someone like Katie did get cast, someone who has been doing this for so long, because so much is going into this part that I think we forget the minor things of just someone who knows how to be on set, and Katie definitely knows how to do that.
PHOTO CREDIT: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Signing on Set
Lizzy Weiss: The crew—actually, the most fun thing for us is that the head of transportation, the PAs, the ADs, they’re running around learning. There are signs that are so fun and intuitive.
Sean Berdy: Everyone on set.
Vanessa Marano: Lucas has, like, been having secret conversations with his girlfriend at parties.
Paul Stupin: And I can tell you that some of the more fantastic scenes coming up in our next group of episodes, not a single word is spoken and they’re just beautiful to look at and so powerful.
Lizzy Weiss: It’s true.
Katie Leclerc: And I think that sometimes those silent scenes can be even be more powerful because we’re so inundated with sound, we’re so just you can’t avoid it. And sometimes when, you know, you’re watching something, a silent scene will make you pay more attention and it makes you look up just that much more and really focus in.
Vanessa Marano: It’s true. When you take a sense away, it heightens your other senses.
On New Characters
Vanessa Marano: This season, we get introduced to other deaf characters, one of which comes from a hearing family and I think you learn a little bit about the differences between his experience growing up and Daphne’s experience growing up.
On American Sign Language
Sean Berdy: American Sign Language is obviously in the show. It’s very unique, and it makes the show very unique and very beautiful. It’s not something you see on TV every day. This is part of my life, but it’s not part of everybody’s life. And it’s wonderful to expose the world to American Sign Language and deaf people and the idea that deaf people are, yes, different, but not so different that you can’t understand them. Deaf people are beautiful. They’re outgoing. They’re creative. And Lizzy and Paul created a show to showcase deaf people as they live and breathe. And I really thank them for this show, and I thank you all for watching. It’s a beautiful show. And American Sign Language is beautiful.
On Casting Katie Leclerc
Lizzy Weiss: In terms of casting Katie, she’s hard of hearing. She’s not deaf like her character. And it was just really important to me that the character feel and sound more deaf than Katie is. So once we know we have to have Katie Leclerc — she pops off the screen. She’s a wonderful actress. She’s beautiful. That she looks like Lea Thompson is a huge bonus. We asked her to put on a deaf accent because having a deaf accent is part of the experience of being distanced from someone deaf at first and feeling uncomfortable, and I really wanted her biological family to feel nervous around her and to have to get over it all. That’s what the show is about, is putting things out there that aren’t normally talked about. And so we asked her to put on a deaf accent like you would put on a British accent or a Southern accent. And Katie can tell you she worked with people to get that accent exactly right.
Question: How much have the cast members learned over the course of this experience so far?
Constance Marie: For myself, I think I was one of the first people cast because playing the mother of a deaf child, I had to be perceived to be fluent in the language and I knew absolutely nothing about it. And I was a dancer so I understand pattern. And I’m also Latin; we’re very expressive with our hands. So that didn’t hurt. So I had three weeks to prepare for the pilot, to do the monologue. Well, not it felt like a monologue, but it was just a very long scene and a very passionate scene that was very featured in the pilot. And it was just an unbelievable.
Katie and Vanessa were joined by co-stars Constance Marie, D.W. Moffett, Lea Thompson, Lucas Grabeel, Sean Berdy as well as creator and executive producer Lizzy Weiss and executive producer Paul Stupin. Asked about the process of casting Daphne, Lizzy Weiss said that it was a very emotional experience. “We only opened it up to deaf and hard of hearing actresses, actually. It was really important to us that the actress who played the part had the experience, first of all, of being fluent in American Sign Language,” Lizzy said.
“We opened it up to non actresses, to just anyone. It was an open casting call. And Paul and I just had a really emotional day. People came in, drove in for hours, said thank you so much for writing this, for having a character who is so well rounded, who happens to be deaf, who is a full, real person who’s not just like a, you know, witness to a murder on another show. And they were just so excited that this could have the chance to go on TV.”
