Embracing Silence: A Deaf Actor's Perspective on Entertainment

A heightened awareness for cultural sensitivity and representation on the silver screen has some actors hoping that it may finally be their time to shine.

Meet Jake Romero

Jake Romero is a young actor whose credits include films like Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls and student thesis Talking to Myself. He is also a gay man who was born with Usher syndrome, a genetic disease that causes deafness and progressive blindness. While he may deal with type 1C, he says the spectrum of the Usher syndrome experience is wide.

Jake’s partial blindness prevents him from being able to drive, so he depends on ride-sharing services to get to and from work or arrive to auditions, for instance. At a young age, Jake received a cochlear implant that helps him hear. Cochlear implants are not perfect, and he relies on lip reading quite often which is something he says became painstakingly obvious during the mask-mandate era of Covid.

Jake pictured above right before a surgery to reimplant his hearing aid

The Importance of Accurate Representation

For the 94th Academy Awards, CODA received awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film portrays deaf characters with the use of deaf actors. A staggering 95%of characters with disabilities seen on television are played by non-disabled actors. Other media that attempts to portray marginalized communities has Jake feeling hopeful about his future as an actor. He feels that the industry is more hyper focused on diverse stories and experiences. More recently, he’s noticed small changes on sets and in audition rooms. Directors are more open to allowing him to keep his hearing aid on during scenes, and during casting, he’s been asked to keep it on for auditions more often than before.

Allen Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

However, he says that there is still work to be done in terms of how accurate a character’s representation of a disability is portrayed. Jake insists on the importance of disabled characters being played by disabled actors. Studies show that positive portrayals of characters can positively impact our mental health, and Jake has taken matters into his own hands. He hopes to produce a “superhero type” series, as he describes it, which he co-wrote a whopping two seasons of with a good friend. He says he’s always dreamt of seeing an action film starring a disabled actor. Jake’s series would portray characters on the spectrums of queerness and disability as authentically as possible by casting actors with the actual lived experience they’d be asked to pull from for the role.

Community Support Is Essential

Living with Usher syndrome can sometimes feel isolating. Aside from blatant ableism and discrimination, there are downsides that he says make it difficult for him to be as social as he’d like to be. Navigating loud environments and dark spaces isn’t easy. It can become difficult to hear what someone might be saying, and his eyes have trouble walking at night, not to mention his trouble keeping his balance, another symptom of Usher syndrome. Considering the significance of nightlife to queer culture and safe spaces, Jake explains that he doesn’t have the best of luck dating. In fact, he feels most gay men can be quite insensitive when they learn about his differences, which he optimistically says helps him weed out “the jerks.”

Jake is pictured below at the USHthis summer camp for children with Usher syndrome

Jake has several queer and disabled friends but says that finding a combination of the two is quite rare. For the past four summers he’s volunteered and built connections at USHthis, a youth summer camp catered to children with Usher syndrome. Here, counselors like Jake get to mentor children (ages 11-17) and provide support. He explains that being in a space surrounded by people who understand can be so freeing.

Jake aspires to someday debut a queer character from his show that lives with Usher syndrome.