The Stand casts hearing actor in Deaf role, faces boycott

The Stand is facing criticism for casting hearing actor Nick Zaga as Deaf character Nick Andros, as well as for its wonky timelines.

CBS All Access premiered the first episode of The Stand, its adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror novel about a plague that wipes out most of the world’s population, just the other day, and it’s already mired in controversy. Although we haven’t met him on the show yet, The Stand features a character named Nick Andros, who is Deaf and mute. He’s played by New Mutants star Henry Zaga, who is hearing. The day The Stand premiered, producer and writer Jade Bryant posted a statement objecting to the casting decision on Twitter, signed by 70 Deaf professionals including actors Antoinette Abbamonte (Curb Your Entusiasm), James Caverly (Chicago Med) Dickie Hearts (Grace & Frankie) and director Jules Dameron (Reverse Polarity).

“At the time of diversity and inclusion, this cycle of misrepresentation and unequal or non-existent employment opportunities for Deaf professionals in the entertainment industry, both in front of and behind the camera, must end,” the statement reads. “This has been happening for decades; enough is enough!”

"Not one Deaf professional actor was called in to audition for the role. The decision was made without respect to and for Deaf professionals, union and non-union alike. There was no acknowledgement given to the psycho of a Deaf character; being Deaf is more than just not hearing.it is time for industry professionals to create opportunities for Deaf talent to work on the set, in front of, and behind the camera, in the writing rooms, sit on creative teams when there is a Deaf character involved i the storyline. Our voice is a sign of the times."

It does seem a little odd that The Stand producers didn’t try harder to get Deaf talent in the role given how Hollywood has been more and more concerned with representation over the past several years.

As for Zaga, he talked about what it was like to play the character to The Wrap. “All we can do is play the character as respectfully and as honorably as possible by doing all the homework we can, by putting our hearts into it, and truly trying to understand how that situation would really play out,” he said. “I went through a year of [learning American Sign Language] every single day, for over two hours a day. It’s tough work, but it’s also like, if you think it’s available within your heart, you know, to portray this character, you better do a good job with it.”

Per The Wrap, CBS All Access is meeting with the group that released the statement today.

The Stand has run into another, more minor controversy, as well. Some reviewers, including ours, have dinged it for telling Stephen King’s story out of order. The show starts after the worst of the plague — known as Captain Trips — has passed, revealing who survives the early sections of the book. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Benjamin Cavell explained — or you might say justified — his decision.

“I feel like an audience is savvy enough at this point [to follow along],” Cavell said. “I doubt people would have thought that James Marsden (Stu Redman) was going to die due to Captain Tripps and not be with us for the whole series. It’s a completely valid question, I just don’t know if that’s the juice of the early part of the series. It’s not so much about whether the characters are going to die, but rather: What is the horror that’s going to befall them? And how are they going figure out how to push back against that evil?”

Eh, I dunno, not knowing who’s going to die adds a lot of tension to the first chunk of the story, but you do you, Benjamin Cavell.

"Captain Trips is not The Stand. Having time run completely linearly as it does the book would mean making people sit through three episodes of the world dying before we got to the meat of our story. For us, it’s about the rebuilding and the struggle between Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail and the question that all the characters have to ask themselves, which is: If you got the chance to push the reset button on human civilization, how would you build it? I think we were all starting to – reluctantly – be willing to consider the possibility that maybe those things aren’t as stable as we had come to believe, that maybe we need to start thinking about ideas like: Is [society] structured correctly? Is it built in the best way, or are there other systems? It’s about these fundamental questions: What does the individual owe to society and what does the society owe the individual and what do human beings owe one another?"

If you wanna decide for yourself whether this all works, new episodes drop every Thursday on CBS All Access.

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