Troy Kotsur is now the first deaf male actor to win an Academy Award, after taking home the Best Supporting Actor trophy for his performance in the film CODA.
“I just wanted to say that this is dedicated to the deaf community, the CODA community, and the disabled community,” he said in his speech, which was translated as presenter Youn Yuh-jung held his statue. “This is our moment!” Before announcing his name, Yuh-jung, quite beautifully, signed to him.
“I read one of Spielberg’s books lately and he said that the definition of a director was ‘the best communicator,’” he said. “Sian Heder, you are the best communicator because you brought the deaf world and the hearing world together.”
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Kotsur also told an emotional story about his father. “My dad, he was the best signer in our family. But he was in a car accident and he became paralyzed from the waist down, and he was no longer able to sign. Dad, I learned so much from you, I’ll always love you. You are my hero.”
Kotsur is only the second deaf performer to be nominated.
The first deaf actor to win an award was right beside him, too: Marlee Matlin, who scored the Oscar for Children of a Lesser God, played his wife in CODA.
Matlin fought for Kotsur’s casting in CODA, a film about a teenage girl who is the only hearing member of her family learning to connect with her deaf parents and brother through, of all things, her passion for singing. Originally, the studio backing the film pushed for a famous hearing actor to take on the role of her husband.
“The idea was presented to me that there would be hearing people who would be playing those roles, and I thought, are you kidding me?” Matlin told The Daily Beast. “I didn’t have to freak out and I didn’t have to go crazy and scream about it, I just calmly said, ‘If you do it, then I am out.’ Simple as that. And I guess my feelings—and what I was trying to represent—worked. I mean, it was a no-brainer.”
Back in 1986, Matlin herself became the first deaf actor to be nominated for her role as Sarah in Children of a Lesser God, later becoming the first to win the Oscar at the 1987 awards show.
CODA has triumphed as this year’s awards-season underdog. After a sunny debut at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Heder’s film has seen an uptick of awards chatter as its snagged BAFTA awards, the top prize at SAG, and more. It earned three nominations, including Best Picture, at Sunday’s Oscars.
Before his big role in CODA, Kotsur starred in a number of TV shows, including Scrubs, Criminal Minds, and The Mandalorian in guest roles. He’s also starred in the films Universal Signs, and Wild Prairie Rose. After Kotsur’s big awards tour wraps up, he’s set to star in Flash Before the Bang, a film based on a true story about an all-deaf high school track and field team.
