The Cast And Crew Of 'Echo' Took ASL Classes
Image Source: CultureSlate
Alaqua Cox had never thought of acting as a career, but when friends sent her a flyer looking for an Indigenous deaf woman to try out for a role in the 2021 Marvel series Hawkeye, she decided “I’ll give it a shot.” The part was small, but her performance drew the eye of studio execs, who created a spin-off centred around the character Cox portrayed. With Echo recently arriving on Disney+, Cox has revealed her experiences of being the lead in the series during an interview with Variety.
Marvel was willing to help make Cox comfortable during the shooting of the series, hiring other people who were deaf. “I had an ASL consultant who was deaf on set, and he helped me with the translation of English into ASL of my lines. I also had a deaf acting coach and a deaf personal trainer. I told [Marvel] that I would like to have one-on-one conversations with them, instead of going through an interpreter. And they actually made it happen.”
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Before the production of the series had started, Cox had told the cast and crew to take ASL lessons. Which they did. “All the cast and crew would go to ASL classes two or three times a week on Zoom. So when I arrived on set, I was greeted with, ‘Hello, how are you?’ in sign. It was the basics, but it was so nice to be able to communicate. It made me feel way more comfortable and welcomed.”
The full interview talks about her life and the response she has gotten from the communities she is a part of, how the challenge of on-set cues was handled, the act of emoting using ASL, and what Cox would like to see become of her acting career. The five-episode series of Echo is available now on Disney+, where Cox stars alongside Indigenous actors such as Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal.
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Source: Variety
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