For Immediate Release
2018 Media Access Awards Presented by Easterseals Honors Media & Entertainment Trailblazers Advancing Disability Awareness & Inclusion
Ceremony is the Ultimate Annual Celebration of Diversity & Disability Inclusion
Beverly Hills, Calif., November 19, 2018
Held Nov. 1 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Media Access Awards, presented by Easterseals and produced by Deborah Calla and Allen Rucker, broadens the definition of inclusion. This year’s invitation-only event paid tribute to entertainment industry professionals who tirelessly advance public awareness, inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities, as well as call out for positive and accurate depictions of characters with disabilities in film and television. This year also marks the launch of a long-term alliance and partnership with Easterseals Southern California (ESSC). One-in-four Americans (25%) live with a disability, making it today’s largest minority population. But just 1.7% of TV and 2.7% of film roles feature a character with a disability and over 95% of those roles go to actors without a disability.
Comedian Drew Lynch, who first gained national attention on America’s Got Talent co-hosted the awards with actress Logan Browning, currently starring in the groundbreaking and thought-provoking Netflix series “Dear White People.” Sasha Alpert and Megan Sleeper received the Casting Society of America Award; Simon Cowell earned the Visionary Award; the CSA’s Inclusion and Diversity Committee accepted the SAG-AFTRA Disability Awareness Award; and Tatiana Lee won the Christopher Reeve Acting Scholarship. Cowell, in the U.K. for work, taped a video messages expressing gratitude. Gail Williamson, a talent agent who represents more than 400 performers with disabilities, received the Norman Lear-Geri Jewell Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marlee Matlin presented the PGA George Sunga Award to Joshua Feldman, Shoshannah Stern and other producers of the TV series “This Close,” the first show written, produced, and created by deaf people. Stern said as a producer, she felt it important to hire people with disabilities, and the show employed 18 deaf people in front of and behind the camera, with Season 2 promising higher numbers.
Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds “A Quiet Place,” presented the WGAW Evan Somers Memorial Award to the film’s scripters John Krasinski (who also directed and starred), Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. “Millicent became the defining voice of ‘A Quiet Place,'” Beck said. “The wide experience that she brought gave her character in the film an authenticity that we could only be a small part of on the page, and so in many ways, we consider Millie to be the fourth writer of ‘A Quiet Place.’” Krasinski, who accepted via videotape, fought to cast Simmonds, a deaf actress, to play a deaf character.
CJ Jones, who became the first black deaf actor to appear in a blockbuster film in 2017’s “Baby Driver” received the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award at the event. “My vision is to facilitate that abundance of creativity, from all people without labels, working together to make incredible movies together, and watch the screen come alive with authentic roles for everyone.”
Easterseals Disability Film Challenge Founder and Easterseals Southern California Board Member Nic Novicki saluted Carl Hansen, who won this year’s Easterseals Disability Film Challenge for his film “Check Mate.”
The show opened with a salute from former Media Access emcee Jimmy Kimmel.
