The last few weeks have been life-changing for Troy Kotsur. His first Oscar nomination. A SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor. A Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. And, this past weekend, a BAFTA Award for Supporting Actor. He is the first deaf actor to win all of these honors, all in recognition for his performance in Sian Heder‘s Best Picture nominee, “CODA.” And appreciation for a career on stage and screen that has lasted almost three decades. When he jumped on a Zoom call last week, it was less than 24 hours after he attended his first Oscar luncheon which he described as a “big family gathering.”
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“I met several celebrities like Jessica Chastain and Rosario Dawson, and many of these folks happened to know sign language, which really surprised me,” Kotsur says. “That was really cool. And maybe I can work with them in the future. It’s nice to meet actors who know sign language. And I’m sure there’s many more out there that I’m not even aware of, and so all of this stuff is new to me. And it was so cool to meet so many actors and really, I couldn’t even move because so many folks were coming up to me. Andrew [Garfield] from ‘Spider-Man,’ he stopped me and waved and he said, ‘Hey, I love you,’ and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it really touched me, and to meet so many of these folks and shake their hand because I’m a big fan of many of theirs, and I don’t even realize they recognize me. I’m extremely proud of my work and it feels good to be seen and validated, and have my work be recognized”
This dream of an award season really hit home for Kotsur with his SAG Award win. He says the Screen Actors Guild saved his life when he was a struggling actor trying to make ends meet. He notes, “I had several TV appearances and I would get one fat paycheck, and then six months later, I’d receive a second check because of SAG and their protections through that union to make sure that they keep actors earning a fair amount of money, which it was a relief to me when that would happen from time to time.”
He continues, “You have musicians who go through similar struggles as actors, who’ve had frustrations and make sacrifices and sleep in weird places and all of that shit, just to be a starving actor or a starving musician or a starving artist. And so now on stage at SAG, I looked around the room and I said, ‘I completely understand what it’s like to be a starving actor. It’s not funny.’ You can’t escape paying the utility bills. I needed the money to keep my lights on. And so I had to make sacrifices. I had to sleep in my car in exchange for paying a certain bill. I feel like it’s such a blessing to receive the SAG Award and to be recognized by my peers because it’s like a payoff of everything I went through throughout the years. So yeah, it’s truly a blessing,”
Kotsur has had a unique career including appearing on Broadway in “Big River,” but his big break was “CODA” and it was a long time coming. An adaptation of the French language feature “La Famille Bélier,“ Heder’s English language version found him playing Frank Rossi, a hearing-impaired fisherman whose daughter Ruby (Emilia Jones) is struggling as a “coda” (child of deaf adults) and, essentially, the only hearing person in her close-knit family. The film was shot before the COVID pandemic hit and accepted into the first virtual Sundance Film Festival in 2021 (Sundance was forced to hold a second virtual edition because of the Omicron variant this past January). Like Heder and his co-stars, Kotsur was completely unsure of how the film would be received or if it would even be acquired in this new festival environment.
“I felt like it was a bit hopeless that we weren’t able to socialize,” Kotsur recalls. “I was still staying at home. We were going to do Sundance over Zoom and have those announcements? And of course, it was a weird experience. And I was a bit worried, but I was surprised because it actually was a blessing in disguise. Because during COVID, a lot of people were at home with their families and our film really reminds people to cherish their families, and how much parents truly love their children, and really parents letting go of their kids. And so it was actually oddly enough, a perfect timeline. It was weird for me, of course. I didn’t see it on the big screen. I was watching my own movie for the first time on a laptop, which was of course a different journey. I was like, ‘Oh, I missed Park City again.'”
At Sundance, “CODA” earned rave reviews and took both the Audience Award and the prestigious Grand Jury – Dramatic Competition honor. It was also acquired by Apple TV+ for $25 million, an eye-popping amount considering the uncertainty of theatrical exhibition at the time. Apple did release it in theaters, however, and made sure that closed captioning was burned into the prints. Kotsur grew up in the 70s and 80s and going to the local multiplex meant his brother or parents had to interpret the dialogue for him. The fact Apple took this step meant a great deal.
“I would say, ‘Hey, what did they just say?’ And then I could laugh, but there was a delay,” Kotsur remembers. “I was laughing at the wrong time. My family members were embarrassed and there was a delay in my enjoyment of these films. And I became addicted to foreign films because they were always subtitled. And really finally times began to change. There were subtitles and closed captioning so deaf audience members can enjoy these films and more access. When a film was released six months later it would come out on VHS, and I’d have to look on the back to see if it had the CC box on the back of the VHS tape. And I’d be like, ‘Oh, f**k. This one doesn’t.’ Today we had complete burned in open captioning in our film ‘CODA,’ and I’m grateful to Apple TV+ for putting in burned in captioning. So finally, I’m able to sit in a theater of deaf audience members, not only deaf, but hard of hearing or older folks who have lost their hearing, some know sign language, some don’t. But you can read the subtitles. It’s just friendly access for everyone to simultaneously react. So now I laugh at the same time as the hearing audience members. I can emotionally react at the same time. And so really it’s something that’s extremely special. And it’s something that I’ve been waiting for my entire life, for an audience to be able to share these emotions and react together.”
“CODA” is available on Apple TV+ worldwide.