This film focuses on the only hearing member of a deaf family – and it has a noteworthy legacy
CODA first hit the headlines back in January when it won four major prizes at the Sundance Film Festival and was snapped up by Apple TV+ for a reported festival record of $25m (£18m).
Now the movie has been released on the streaming service and is likely to be one of their contenders come awards season, but it is the legacy it is leaving in terms of accessibility that is really noteworthy.
CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults and the film centres on Ruby – the only hearing member of a deaf family – whose loyalties are torn when she discovers a passion for singing that could lead her away from the family home and business.
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The drama features deaf actors in many of the main roles, and much of its dialogue is shown through American Sign Language (ASL).
Writer and director Sian Heder told Sky News that in researching the project she quickly realised she was planning to do something that is rarely seen on screen.
“I wish I could say it was an easier ride,” Heder said.
“When I started writing the script, I went out and I was like, okay, I got to go find the deaf movies, and you’re looking for them and you’re going back to Children Of A Lesser God 30 years ago – which is Marlee Matlin’s Oscar-winning performance – but since then it’s just so few and far between, I could count them on one hand, the stories that portray deaf characters, especially in leading roles.
“[I was] looking for these portrayals and trying to find a pure ASL scene on screen where you’re watching characters relate in ASL and so it was interesting to sort of be heading into a bit of unknown territory where it was like: ‘Oh, there’s no roadmap for this, we’re going to discover this on our own.'”
Heder said that visiting the set of US show This Close – which was created by and stars deaf actors – helped her to understand what was needed to capture the story she’d written on film, and that she’s now hoping to set an example for other film-makers.
Marlee Matlin (right) appears in CODA. Pic: Apple
“Figuring out how many interpreters do we need to have on set and where do they need to be, and, you know, we have a vocal track – someone at the monitor who’s just speaking the lines into a track so the editor can cut those scenes.”
“Now I want to sort of share that information because I think people are daunted when they think about it – it’s like ‘how did you work with deaf actors?’ And I’m like, ‘actually it was really easy once we put the things in place to facilitate communication on set and make an accessible set.’
“But there isn’t really a way that it’s normally been done because it hasn’t been done very often.”
And it’s not just the on-screen action which is likely to have an impact on future film-making.
Apple have announced that CODA will be the first film ever to have burned-in subtitles, meaning that it will be accessible to anyone that wants to watch it.
Sian Heder says stories like CODA are rarely seen on screen. Pic: Appla
Matlin plays the main character’s mother in CODA, and says she was captivated by the project as soon as she read the script.
“I didn’t want anyone else to take it away, I wanted this role, the opportunity, and I thought this was a story that was a long time in coming that we really needed to share,” Matlin told Sky News.
“It had to do with deaf culture and sign language and on so many levels it was a universal story as well, it was the perfect vehicle for me as an actor to be involved.”
Matlin hopes that just as she did decades ago with Children of a Lesser God, this film will encourage audiences to realise stories about the deaf community can be relevant to anyone.
“I hope that people will be able to see – the same way they saw Children Of A Lesser God – they’ll be taken aback by seeing a deaf character, now we’re talking about several deaf characters carrying the film, that people will see now finally realising, oh, OK, there are thousands of stories, universal stories that are within the deaf community that need to be told and to be shared.
“The beauty of our culture, the beauty of our language, the beauty of our stories, as I said, just to remind people that we’re people just like everybody else, and we have wonderful stories to tell.”
Her husband in the film is played by deaf stage actor Troy Kotsur.
He is also the real-life father of a CODA who he admits “saw the parallels” between what happens in the film and their own family experiences.
Troy Kotsur (right) plays Matlin’s husband in CODA. Pic: Apple
Kotsur told Sky News that it’s difficult for hearing people to understand what it’s like being a CODA – his on-screen daughter Ruby is teased at school by teenagers who have no idea what her life is like.
“She had a hard time trying to articulate what it’s like growing up in a deaf family, nobody understands that,” he explained.
“And it’s different than a typical experience where you have a different spoken language – here with deaf culture and sign language she had to sign at home because that’s the language that we used as a family and then leaving home, she had to adapt and didn’t sign very much.
“The movie depicts her journey navigating between two separate worlds, and this is an opportunity to really share that with the viewers about what it’s like being a CODA.”
For Emilia Jones, who plays Ruby, landing the role meant learning ASL, learning to fish and having singing lessons for the first time.
But despite it sounding like a daunting list of tasks, the actress explained to Sky News that she relished the opportunity, and particularly enjoyed learning ASL which she did for nine months before getting to set, then more intensively with ASL Masters Alexandria Wailes and Anne Tomasetti.
Emilia Jones’ character discovers a passion for singing. Pic: Apple
Jones said: “I wanted to be pushed and I wanted to be challenged so they pushed me very hard.
“I guess it’s like when you’re learning French, you go and live in France and you learn so much more, so the minute I landed, I started intense training and then I met Troy, Daniel [Durant who plays her brother Leo] and Marlee and we kind of started rehearsals and we worked closely together, I just learnt so much faster.”
For Heder, seeing her the words she wrote come alive on screen via ASL was a process she describes as “incredible” – starting when she and ASL Master Alexandria Wailes went through the script line by line, long before they got on set.
Heder explained: “She would read the line of dialogue and she would talk to me about my intention with the line and the emotional state of the character and then she would give me her sign choices and say, ‘what do you think about this?’
“I remember there was a line where the sign for dead was kind of a passive sign [so I asked] ‘is there something more active – she’s really angry in this moment – that could kind of be sharper?’ And so the sign for ‘killing me’ was like a much more dynamic sign in that moment.
“And it was just the coolest process to go through line by line and discover together this completely visual language.”
CODA is in cinemas and available to stream on Apple TV_.
Entertainment
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F cast Kevin Bacon, John Ashton and Judge Reinhold on the long-awaited sequel
For fans of Beverly Hills Cop, ending the Eddie Murphy-led franchise on part three seemed less than favourable.
Despite the film including a cameo from Star Wars’ George Lucas, it excluded one of the main characters, John Taggart, and received lacklustre reviews from fans.
Pic: Melinda Sue Gordon/Netflix
Now, not only does John Ashton’s character make a return to the franchise in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, but the film also gives a sly nod to its previous errors.
Chatting to Sky News, Judge Reinhold notes the on-screen recognition alongside his co-star Ashton.
“Do you remember reading that line where [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] references it? He says, ’94 wasn’t a great year for you’ in the movie?
“I didn’t notice that until I saw it [in the script]. That’s funny”.
The cop duo of John Taggart (played by Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (played by Reinhold) are reunited in the Netflix film.
Recreating a moment from the 1985 original, it was the first time Murphy, Reinhold and Ashton shared the screen together since the second film premiered in 1987.
“That was the first time we’d seen each other in a long time. We were two blocks away from the original location in 84. It was wild,” says Reinhold.
“Jerry Bruckheimer was there and the crew, they were especially quiet. It’s like it was kind of spooky for them. We’d walked out of their collective past or out of a book or something because they were so young when they’d seen it”.
He adds: “It feels like when the three of us are together, something good is going to happen.”
Chiming in, Ashton says it felt special for both the cast and crew.
“One crew guy said to me, ‘I was eight years old when the first one came out and seeing you guys back in the car is giving me the chills’.”
Pic: Melinda Sue Gordon/Netflix
Newcomers to the cop comedy include Joseph Gordon Levitt as Axel Foley’s new sidekick and Kevin Bacon as the villain, Captain Grant.
‘We all have a little darkness in our soul’
Bacon also takes on a villainous role in his next movie, Maxxxine, which is out just a few days after Beverly Hills Cop.
“They’re both really fun and really, really different. I have a job where I can go and be a slick, well-dressed, well-groomed, you know, smiling jack of a Beverly Hills cop.
“And then a few months later go and be whoever that guy is that they scraped off the bottom of the barrel for Maxxxine.”
He adds: “There is a therapeutic aspect to it for sure, because we all have a little bit of darkness in our soul.”
The original Beverly Hills Cop was first released a year after Bacon’s breakthrough role in the Oscar-nominated Footloose.
Pic: Netflix
The American star says that moment in time felt like a whirlwind to him.
‘Laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my face’
“I was introduced to Beverly Hills in a different way because I had starred in Footloose.
“I’d probably been to California a few times before, but Beverly Hills was something that I was kind of watching from a distance. And, after Footloose came out, people would take me to dinner in Beverly Hills – it was like a little bit different.”
Turning to Beverly Hills Cop, he says Murphy is a force of nature.
“I happened to be on a plane the other day, and I dipped into one of his old comedy specials.
“It just kind of came up on my YouTube feed and I was on this plane trying my best to not disturb the passengers around me. But tears were rolling down my face and I was laughing so hard.
“And it’s funny because I thought to myself, oh, that’s right, Eddie was an incredible, is an incredible comedian. Because, you know, when I go to work with an actor, I think about the scene, you know, of course he’s funny.
“And of course, he’s going to be throwing stuff out there and improvising and everything, but it’s really about relating to him as an actor, not as a funny man.”
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is streaming on Netflix now.
Jamie Foxx has revealed some of the details behind the “medical emergency” that left him in hospital last year.
The Oscar-winning star was filmed chatting to fans in downtown Phoenix, appearing to answer a question about his mystery health scare.
In the short video, shared on TikTok by a fan called Dr Brenda Combs, Foxx can be seen wearing white shorts and a black T-shirt outside a café.
The 56-year-old said: “April 11 last year, bad headache, I asked my boy for an Advil,” then clicking his fingers went on, “I was gone for 20 days. I don’t remember anything.”
He then explained: “So, they told me, I’m in Atlanta, they told me, my sister and my daughter, they took me to the first doctor.
“Next doctor said, ‘Something going on up there’, at which point Foxx points up to his head.
He concluded, “I won’t say it on camera,” looking towards the person filming him talking.
The Django Unchained star was reportedly taken ill in Atlanta while filming a movie with Cameron Diaz called Back In Action.
Jamie Foxx with his daughter Corinne in 2021. Pic:AP
In December, he made his first big public appearance after coming out of hospital, appearing at the Critics Choice awards where he was honoured with a Vanguard Award for his performance in comedy-drama The Burial.
‘I did go to hell and back’
While accepting the award Foxx told the audience he had been unable to walk during his illness, and the fight for his health had given him “a new respect for life… [and] for my art”.
He has maintained a relatively low profile during his recovery, but speaking in a video shared with fans last summer he said he went “to hell and back” while being treated in hospital.
He said: “I didn’t want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was going to make it through.”
The actor, comedian and singer added that he would rather fans see him “laughing, having a good time, partying, cracking a joke, doing a movie”.
Foxx, who scooped up awards for playing Ray Charles in the 2004 film Ray, also said his sister Deidra and daughter Corinne had saved his life.
He also debunked claims he had been blinded or paralysed during his illness.
Last May, Foxx announced he would become the host of a US musical game show, We Are Family, alongside his daughter Corinne, due to air later this year on the Fox network.
Back In Action, the movie he was filming when he fell ill, is due out in November.
Pearl Jam have cancelled two more tour dates due to illness, after pulling out of a London gig last week.
The rock group had been due to play in Berlin on Tuesday and Wednesday but called it off because “the band has yet failed to make a full recovery”.
The type of illness, or which band members have been affected, has not been revealed.
They said tickets would be refunded at point of purchase, adding that while they wished “a reschedule had been possible for this tour leg” they “hope to come back to Berlin soon”.
On Friday, they cancelled their Tottenham Hotspur Stadium show scheduled for Saturday night due to illness in the band, saying they had “no other option”.
The band said in a statement shared on Instagram: “We are sorry to share that the Pearl Jam concerts scheduled for Tuesday, July 2nd and Wednesday, July 3rd in Berlin are cancelled.
“Despite everyone’s best efforts, the band has yet to make a full recovery.”
They went on: “The impacts of this decision are not lost on us. We feel deeply that so many people spend their time, money, and emotional energy to get tickets and then to come see the band and it is heart wrenching to have to disappoint you.
“We also appreciate the many people whose hard work goes into making these shows happen.”
“Please trust we never take these decisions lightly and try to do everything possible to show up for you all.”
The statement concluded: “Thank you for continued understanding and support, it means the world.”
Pic: Reuters
The band, which formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990, is fronted by Eddie Vedder, along with lead guitarist Mike McCready, drummer Matt Cameron, bass guitarist Jeff Ament and rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard.
They are currently touring the world to promote their latest album, Dark Matter.
Support acts include former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft and Irish indie rockers The Murder Capital.
Their next live show is currently scheduled for 6 July in Barcelona.
The band are set to launch the US leg of their tour on 26 August.
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