Paul Raci reflects on how far Hollywood has to go in its portrayal of Deaf culture

In the critically acclaimed film Sound of Metal, a heavy metal drummer named Ruben struggles to rebuild his life as he starts to go deaf. He finds a mentor in Joe, a veteran and late-deafened individual who runs a sober house for deaf people.

Joe is played by Paul Raci. It's the actor's first major film role and it earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor at the age of 73.

He recently joined Q's Tom Power to talk about how his life experience led him to this tremendous performance. A full transcript of their conversation is available below.

Introduction

The Oscars are coming up this Sunday and if there's one thing we all love at the Academy Awards, it's when a relatively unknown actor finally gets big-time recognition in Hollywood. 

Enter Paul Raci, who's up for a best supporting actor award for his performance in Sound of Metal.

Here's a scene from the film:

JOE: I think it's important that you stay here with us right now Ruben. Learn some sign language. Find some solid ground. What do you think?

RUBEN: Yeah, that sounds great, but we don't have a lot of money right now.

JOE: Well, sometimes the church sponsors deaf people in need and, right now, you fit the bill, Ruben.

RUBEN: We're really not church-going people.

JOE: Sorry, Ruben, I read lips. I can't. What'd you say?

RUBEN: We're not religious. Either of  us. So. Very much not in a religion. No offense.

JOE: Religion plays no part in this Ruben. The church helps people in need, not religious people.

The Oscar-nominated film Sound of Metal stars Riz Ahmed as a heavy-metal drummer who's lost his hearing. In that scene he's talking with the head of a shelter for deaf people played by Paul Raci.

Paul has been kicking around Hollywood for over 30 years, playing small parts on everything from L.A. Law to Parks and Recreation. Now, at age 73, Paul is a best supporting actor nominee for his work in Sound of Metal and he's become a vocal advocate for the Deaf community in Hollywood. Paul is not deaf himself, but he was born to two parents who were. Here's my conversation with Paul Raci.

Congratulations on the nomination.

Thank you, man. I appreciate that.

Tell me what you felt emotionally when that nomination came through when you found out.

Emotionally, it was just a big surprise. You don't know what's going to happen. After doing this acting gig for 30, 35, almost 40 years, including Chicago, you don't expect too much after all this time. But when that happened, it was very gratifying. And just a big lift. I feel like the Academy's added 20 years to my life.

I want to talk about some of those early days in Chicago. You were raised there by two parents who were deaf. At what point did you realize that your upbringing was different than the other kids in the neighborhood?

Wow, what a great question right away [chuckles]. You have to realize in the '50s, where I grew up in Humble Park in Chicago, there was no captioning for television, no devices that were used to text each other, things that make it a lot easier for the Deaf community. So I was the go between when my father needed to negotiate a contract whether it be our mortgage, or my mother dealing with the gas company, [saying] "Please don't turn off the juice because we'll pay it next week." I'm a little kid, less than seven years old and negotiating between the hearing man and my deaf parents.

At that time, also, there was a lot of... I remember walking down the street with them or being on a bus in Chicago and kids making fun of them, the way they sounded, the way they talked. That sounds so strange, but it's not the way anymore in these days for kids that have deaf parents. But yeah, people were kind of cruel, kids were very cruel.

I knew right away that I was the go-between between the hearing world and the Deaf world. My father wasn't too pleased with... always having to go to the hearing guy for a job, or for this or for that, for a favour. He was very distrustful of the hearing community and so as a young boy, so was I. My father, his opinions and the way he felt about people, rubbed off on me. I had a talk with a hearing guy who is negotiating and telling me, "Don't interpret this for your father. This is just between you and me." And I'm like, "Hey, eff you,  I'm gonna interpret everything for my dad." So it was that kind of thing. It really affected me.

It's also quite a responsibility for a child.

It seems to be, yes, because you don't want to have any screw ups. I remember one time my mother and father put down some earnest money on a house on the north side of Chicago. I don't remember the details, but it got all messed up and we had to go back to that house and get that money back. I had to do that negotiation.

My brother was two years younger than me. We talk about that situation today. He goes, "Boy, I was so glad you had to go and not me because that seemed like an adult situation." It's not a situation that children should be put into.

Thank God now we are in 2021 and there is a sign language profession where you can get an interpreter who is a professional to go in with you and negotiate so people can talk to you on an equal basis.

Is that pressure, that responsibility that you tell me about, part of the reason that you joined the military?

Yeah, I was drafted in 1969. I was actually drafted into the Army. At the time, I was deathly afraid of going into a jungle. I had these nightmares of losing my legs because so many boys are coming back in body bags every night on the news. You probably don't remember that.

So when I got drafted in 1969, I was already 21 years old at that time. My drummer and I went down the street to the Naval office and realized we could exchange two years in the Army for four years in the Navy and be on a ship. The recruiting guy guaranteed me, said "Oh, you'll be on a ship. You won't be losing your legs there." I didn't know how to swim, but that didn't matter to me. So I joined the Navy for four years. And that's how that went down.

I do remember coming home, telling my mother that I joined the Navy and she hit the roof. She exploded with anger "What are we going to do now?" she says. I remember thinking to myself, "Well, you're gonna have to get by without me because I'm done. I'm tired of this responsibility." When I left, the cab was in front of the house and I looked at my younger brother Don, who's two years younger than I, and I just said, "It's all yours now Don." And, with tears in his eyes, he says, "OK, Paul. Good luck."

And when you got back, they were still there.

They were still there. It was 1973. I'm back. I'm in one piece. I had already gotten married while I was in the Navy. This is just a crazy story. But my mother's telling me about, "There's a new thing happening now. It's called sign language interpreting. It's a profession. And you could do this."

And I'm thinking [to] myself, "That's what I did my whole life. I don't want to do this."

So I took a job driving a two-and-a-half tonne truck, delivering Jack Daniel's whiskey all around Chicago. I would be schlepping on a — what do you call those things? — I put five cases on top, lifted up, go down these stairs to a restaurant to deliver Jack Daniel's and wine. But I would do anything to not do the interpreting thing.

Then, a woman who is running an agency contacted me. She said, "There's a young deaf man here in Chicago. He wants to go to electronics school to become an electrician and they will pay you money to help him get through this school to facilitate the communication between the teaching."

I thought, "Well, that intrigues me." Because I was a little bit sore from delivering all these boxes of liquor. It's not for me! I'm 5'6, 125 lbs at the time. So I take the job and turns out this guy that I was interpreting for was number one in his class at electronics school. Number one. All he needed was an interpreter. That's all he needed. He aced everything. All the hearing guys that were in the classroom, respected him so much, loved him so much. And here we are, 40 years later, and he's already retired. He raised a family, had a great living as an electrician in Chicago.

Did it make you appreciate the role you had with your parents that perhaps you hadn't appreciated in the same way before?

Of course. Of course. I didn't realize... you know when you're a kid, you're so ignorant. And you're so cruel. It's all about me, you know. I guess that hasn't changed. But it's all about you, you know? And so when I went through that experience with this young guy, I thought, "Wow." I felt good about myself. It wasn't the money — it was that he was so happy. And he had developed this self-esteem, which he already had, but at that point to turn out to be number one in your class and to get special recognition for it. The teacher, I remember at the time, was so thrilled that he was able to communicate with this guy. So yes, it gave me a newfound appreciation.

And then I started studying so that I could be certified and become a professional. I ended up having a career. My niche happened to be legal interpreting. So I fell into that and I've been interpreting in courtrooms in Illinois and California for the past 35 years as a certified sign language interpreter with a legal certificate. I've done murder trials. I've done traffic tickets. I've done divorces. I've done adoptions. What a fulfilling career I've had as a sign language interpreter. Absolutely.

The reason I wanted to tell some of the stories, not just that it's a fascinating and very moving story, but also I'm really interested in how one part of your life leads to the other part of your life. We had the director of Sound of Metal, Darius Marder, on a little while ago. He said something interesting I'd like for you to hear. Take a listen to this. 

DARIUS MARDER: What's amazing about ASL is that 50 per cent of the language is in your face. You have to get comfortable with actually externalizing emotion, which is really the opposite of what we do as hearing people, I would say, especially in Western culture.

Do you think that your experience with ASL has made you a better actor?

Well, I don't know about that. But I do know that I gained an appreciation for the acting profession as a young boy. My very first experience [with acting] was in 1956. I'm about eight years old then. My mother, who was cut off from pop culture, she says, "I want to go watch this Elvis Presley movie, Love Me Tender. It's a Western with this guy who is making all this noise on Ed Sullivan." I liked Elvis. I loved what he was doing. So we walked about a block and a half down from our house where there was a little movie theatre called The Vision Theater. We go in. This is my first experience watching an adult movie with my mom sitting next to me. And I've quickly realized there was no access for her to see what they were talking about.

So I had to crane my neck and interpret every character — Richard Egan, Debra Paget, Elvis Presley, the whole Civil War story. And I'm interpreting for her what this guy's saying, what that guy's saying and she's just loving it. That's when I thought to myself on the way home, "I was just doing every part in this movie. I was acting. I was conveying the message through to my mother. Wow."

And then later on, my father's watching Bonanza or The Fugitive. And I said to my dad, What do you think this story is about?" He goes, "I don't know. I'm just making it up in my head." So I sat down and I'm interpreting Hoss and Little Joe and Hop Sing, the cook. I'm doing all these characters for my dad. And he's going "Wow, this is great." Then I really realized that I had some kind of affinity to portraying all these characters.

Then I started doing rock and roll because I loved the Beatles. My mother bought me my first tickets to go see the Beatles at Comiskey Park in Chicago on the one condition that when I got home, I'd have to tell her how the whole experience was.

Yeah, it seems like it was important to your mom that you experience these things. You said something interesting, you said she was so cut off from pop culture. It seems like it was important for her that you not be.

Yes, because she was herself. She lost her hearing at the age of five. She already had acquired language, already knew about music. She remembered hearing Frank Sinatra way back when she was a kid. She's the one who bought me my first guitar. She's the one who got me Beatles tickets. She's the one who encouraged me to do whatever I could in the arts.

My father lost his hearing at the age of six months so he did not remember any kind of music or anything so it didn't matter to him. He just was very happy and peaceful the way he was.

My mother, on the other hand, a little bit bitter. You could just tell the older she got, the more she missed it.

But when I was a young man, and she was still young herself, she was very excited about the projects I was in. She'd sneak into rock and roll clubs. I was in a David Bowie band in Chicago.

Were you Bowie? Were you Ziggy?

I used to do Bowie. I did Ted Nugent, Aerosmith. My mother was my seamstress. She made my outfits, like a zipper that goes from my navel up to my neck. But when my mother wasn't around, I take that zipper and just zip it all the way down and be Mr. Sexy, right? So I look in the back of a bar, there she is watching me going, "Hey, zip it up buddy. Zip it up," while she's drinking her seven, seven.

I bet she'd be so proud of you.

She would. I know that they both would. My mother, when I was doing stage acting in Chicago, would come to see any show that I was in. There was no access to communication. There was no sign language interpreting, but she'd just sit there in the front row and just try and read lips of every character on the play that I was doing. My father, he couldn't read lips, but he'd just sit there and watch me, just to watch his son.

And now you're nominated for an Oscar.

Oh, my God. It's just too beautiful. It's unbelievable. It's emotional. It's gratifying after the years and years and years that I've put into this profession. I've always been a sign language interpreter in the court system, and running out to do an audition so I could do one line in a movie or two lines in a TV show, or get ready to do full-length play like Of Mice and Men at Deaf West Theatre. But never got the opportunity to be in a room and speak with somebody that might be able to give me a part that meant something, with some meat, you know?

Let me understand something about about Sound of Metal because this was a role that was, I think, attracting the interest of some pretty big actors. No disrespect to you, but what what convinced [the director] to give the role to you?

Well, my audition tape. I mean, [the director] was always looking for somebody within the community to do Joe. The role of Joe was not written for a deaf actor so a culturally deaf actor could not do the role because he's a late-deafened individual. I think he wanted to parallel the drummer Ruben's experience of being a late-deafened person. These are people that are basically ignored by the Deaf community because they look at them as hearing people. They don't sign. They don't have access to their hearing families. They can't join the Deaf community because they're not culturally Deaf and don't speak sign language. So he was looking for that. I think people were suggesting names to him, but he resisted it. Then as time gets closer to the deadline of shooting, he starts entertaining, "Well, maybe we can get somebody in here that can learn sign language." 

When I put my audition tape down with my scene partner here in L.A., we sent it in. My wife, who is my agent, calls the casting director and says, "Hey, have you seen Paul's tape?"

And they go, "You know what, at this point, the word is out. We've had so many tapes come in from people that know a little bit of sign language. We're inundated. I think they're probably going to go with a name."

My wife goes, "Please, just look at the tape. You got to look at the tape."

"Well, if we can find it, we will."

Ten minutes later, the phone rings. It's the casting director saying, "You know what? Darius has seen the tape. He wants to talk to Paul."

My audition tape was so full of emotion just from what I know about Deaf culture and the Deaf community and what this guy's about that I knew what to do. I knew what to do.

WATCH | Official trailer for Sound of Metal:

That's a beautiful story. Let's take a listen to a clip from the film.

JOE: Let's talk about me. I'm an alcoholic. I lost my hearing in the Vietnam War when a bomb exploded near me. I still remember the music I was listening to when that bomb went off. After that, I lost everything else. My wife, my kid. Not because of being deaf mind you, Ruben. It was the beer.

If you're just tuning in my name is Tom Power. You're listening to Q. I'm speaking with actor Paul Raci about his role in the film Sound of Metal, which has earned him his very first Oscar nomination for best supporting actor at the age of 73.

Are you laughing? 

I love it.

Are you laughing because it seems improbable? Is that what you're laughing?

I just love it. I wanted to be an inspiration to anybody. I really do.

We chose that clip on purpose because he said, "It wasn't the deafness. It was the beer." Your character, Joe, is Ruben's mentor. Ruben is a drummer in a heavy metal band who's going deaf, but he's also a recovering addict. Why was that important to you in telling this story, the addiction side of it?

I went to Vietnam. When I got back, it wasn't pretty. I had developed some pretty nasty addictions that I had to work through. So I'm reading this [script], it's a deaf sober house, which is such a great idea because there is a deaf sober house in Los Angeles called Awakenings. Deaf-owned, deaf-run, deaf counselors, so that deaf addicts can get a leg up on everybody. That resonated with me right there, the addiction. I've heard the story so many times. I've interpreted so many AA meetings. I've run a deaf ministry in Los Angeles. I've been there. I've met so many Joes throughout all of these different meetings that I've attended and interpreted for. It just felt so familiar to me.

The other thing, if I might, is that Darius was such a great, loving director. He let us improv now and then. When Joe says to him, "I still remember the music that was playing before before the bomb went off," that's an improv line that I threw in there. It's from my mom and I remember one time sitting on her lap in a rocker and she's rocking and she's starting to sing a song that she thought she remembered from when she was a little girl. The song is, I'll Get By. It's one of those old schmaltzy songs and she started to sing it to me. I look up and go, "Ma, that's not how the song goes." I'll never forget the look of pain in her eyes. Oh, she looked at me and she says, "Oh, I guess I don't remember." Boy, I'll tell you to this day it haunts me because it hurt her feelings so bad that she couldn't sing anymore. 

How has Hollywood failed the Deaf community?

By just ignoring them or writing them off. I don't know what they're thinking, but hopefully they can open their eyes a little bit. Look, in 1948 Jane Wyman won the Academy Award for playing a deaf woman in Johnny Belinda. Mia Farrow recreated the role in the '60s. All throughout the years, there have been times when hearing actors are cast as deaf people. Now, that's a major sin right there because if you knew what I know, what we all know in the Deaf community, there are deaf actors, men and women who are highly, highly skilled, highly intuitive, highly intelligent, that are not given a chance for many reasons. But they're tired of it. They're sick of it.

The latest one being Wonderstruck with Julianne Moore. As the character's a young woman, they got a deaf actor to do that part. Beautiful. And then when she grows up to be Julianne Moore, Julianne Moore does the sign production off her body and hands and face that, to us, is not authentic. I'm so sorry. If you're deaf, if you're a CODA (Child Of Deaf Adults), such as I am, you look up at the screen, and you go, "Boy, this is not working. This is not the way it goes. I don't care what kind of ASL coach you had training you. It's not authentic."

What I'm going to make sure happens, if I have anything to say about it, now that people are listening... We need to see more protagonists that just happened to be deaf because there are great actors out there. I could name off tons of them that deserve a shot and if you're going to have a deaf character, then it should be authentically portrayed with a deaf actor.

I've had a grand time talking to you about Sound of Metal.

A lot of fun, man

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Edited by Jane van Koeverden. Interview produced by Stuart Berman.