Page 51 - Peter Farrelly Issue

all the rights. I don’t know what that means.
years ago I was up in Vancouver and I wanted to cast a little person in a movie. And I asked a casting agent– who’s really probably the biggest casting agent in Van- couver–I said, “I’d like to see some little people.” And she said, “Oh, we don’t have any little people actors.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “We don’t.” I said, “In Canada?”
Farrelly: This movie was the brainchild of a couple guys, John Jacobs and Zack Unterman. They came up with the idea, I want to say, 15 years ago. They brought in different writers here and there. We developed it for many years. I always wanted to make it because it’s really funny after all those years. You make a deal. I get paid to write and direct it. You’d have to call my agent to find out how it all went down.
Cooper: (laughs)
Cooper: Oh, so you’re directing it.
Farrelly: “Yeah.” “Yeah, you do! You just don’t know about them. Are you kidding?” She said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And we put out a thing and I had every little per- son actor in Canada reaching out to us, but nobody knew about them.
Farrelly: Yeah, I directed it. I directed it and wrote it with a couple of other guys, Jim Freeman and Brian Jarvis and Jeff Bushell. We spent years working on it. In the meantime, of course, you’re doing other projects. I always have four or five irons in the fire at the same time because, like I said, it’s impossible to get a movie made. So, you’d better have a bunch going on. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you could end up with a very unhappy Easter.
Cooper: Exactly.
Cooper: (laughs) I know from your past work you bring in some casting with actors with authentic disabilities. Were you able to do that with Ricky?
Farrelly: It was horrifying. She was embarrassed, and she changed immediately. I remember she came to me a couple times and said, “I’m really embarrassed about that thing. That’s just such an oversight.” But it should- n’t just be little people, it should be people—there are so many people you’re overlooking if you’re just look- ing for what people have been casting through history.
Farrelly: Oh, yeah. I always do that, and for a few rea- sons. Number one, because that’s the real world. And if you don’t have actors with disabilities in there, you’re making a fake world. I always see it. I’ll see a movie where there’s a thousand people, and I don’t see one person with a disability. It annoys me, but I also feel like it’s bullshit. That’s one reason why I do it. Another reason is because they’ve been overlooked. It’s a part of society that’s been completely overlooked, disabled actors. They’ve been out there forever. They never get seen, and it’s not right. I think they should get a step up. I want to bring them in. I bring them in for lots of roles, because despite what the Supreme Court just did to affirmative action, I’m for giving people who have been historically held back a leg up. I want to—they deserve a little extra attention because they’ve been overlooked since the film began.
Cooper: Yeah. It’s very difficult to sometimes get it through the head of some of these people that there is talent out there. Just because they haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Like you said, historically, it’s been so bad. When we talk to Screen Actors Guild, all of the major organizations connected to the entertain- ment industry and even KMR, you know Gail.
Cooper: Have you ever gone to abilityE.com? Farrelly: I don’t think I have.
Farrelly: By the way, also the agent–And this is some- thing I’ve said a million times, but I’ll say it again– is that for the casting agents, a big part of the problem is that they’re not (seeing it that) way. That 20 years ago if you saw “girlfriend, 24, pretty, walks into the room,” they see a white woman. And now they don’t. Now things have changed. We have some diversity in that way. But they’re not thinking about disability. Nowhere does it say, “great hearing,” “perfect eyesight,” describ- ing that woman. Just because it just says “woman, 24,” doesn’t mean that there’s not a disability, just like it doesn’t mean that the woman’s not black.
Cooper: Just to give you a brief update, our nonprofit, which is ABILITY Corps, created during COVID— actually just before COVID, the first robust platform that included a database and much more of thousands of actors who authentically have a disability it’s not only there for the taking for any part, but if you specifically need a left-handed amputee because it’s a story line that needs that, then you’d go in and put those parameters in and find the talent.
Cooper: Exactly. I don’t know if you caught what I was saying. The idea for our database would be not just because you need to find a specific character who has that specific disability because that’s the way that particular
Farrelly: Wow! I tell the story of how about five or six
Farrelly: Oh, yeah.
Cooper: They love what we’re doing because it actually will enhance their portfolio because most of the people who are signing up with us don’t have agents, they’re not members of SAG yet, so they’ll just get more busi- ness because they’ll need to find an agent at one point once they get a gig.
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