Marlee Matlin and director Shoshannah Stern join us at the THR studio in Park City to talk all about their documentary 'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore.' Matlin reveals why this was the moment to tell her story onscreen and choosing a director like Stern for the film.
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00:00Well, I mean, the four kids said,
00:02mom, you and dad, you guys were so young and fun.
00:08Can't you be fun again?
00:11We're still fun.
00:13What are you talking about?
00:18What made you decide that this was the moment
00:21to tell your story on screen, especially after the book?
00:24You know, what was it that made you say this is the time
00:28and I want to talk more about my life?
00:31I've always felt that it should be told on screen
00:38because the book itself is a written,
00:40it's written in words, in English,
00:45as opposed to telling the story in American Sign Language,
00:50where it's perfectly made for the screen, it's visual,
00:56and for her to be able to direct it with a deaf lens
01:04would be an entirely different experience
01:05than reading the book,
01:07and I know that she was the perfect person
01:10to direct the film.
01:13I did have one question.
01:17I, you know, whenever I had met with American Masters,
01:21I was like, wow, this is an incredible opportunity.
01:25I feel like, I mean, I knew the story
01:29that I wanted to tell right away.
01:30It's one that's been growing in me my whole entire life.
01:33I've always admired Marlee.
01:35I've been able to see her,
01:37and she's the first time that I saw somebody look like me
01:40and talk like me on the screen,
01:41and I felt like I've always known the story,
01:43but I said, I can't say yes
01:46because I just have one question.
01:49Does Marlee know that you're asking me?
01:53And then I was like, oh, it was her idea.
01:56I was like, oh, oh, oh, right.
01:58Okay.
02:00Did anything surprise either of you
02:02about the process of making the movie,
02:04or did you learn anything?
02:06What surprised me was not so much a surprise
02:11because Marlee is an open book.
02:13It's all already out there in concept,
02:17but I didn't think that that was a con
02:19to the film that we were making.
02:22I thought it was going to be a great opportunity.
02:24I wasn't thinking so much about what has been said
02:27and being like, oh, this happened.
02:29We're gonna have some salacious intention
02:32to try to make her,
02:33we're gonna push her to say things
02:35that she hasn't said before.
02:36We didn't wanna do that.
02:37What I wanted was for Marlee to own her own story
02:40and reframe it in a way that I've always felt it
02:43and how I've always seen it
02:45as a deaf woman who shares her experience,
02:48who has experienced so many things like her.
02:50To see the way that people spoke to her
02:51and the words that they used to describe her
02:54and the assumptions that had been made
02:55about Marlee's experience,
02:57the weight that she's always had to carry,
02:59she's always had to educate hearing people
03:01who just sit there and say,
03:02oh, Marlee, so what's it like to be deaf?
03:04What does that mean?
03:04Tell me, captions, what?
03:06What are all these things?
03:09Wow, the weight of that,
03:10I felt like I could see that
03:13and I wanted to be there with her and carry it with her.
03:15I wanted her to reclaim and define the story for herself.
03:21And that was just, not surprising,
03:24but it was revealing
03:30just how much stories can change
03:34depending on who's perceiving them,
03:37depending on who the story's for,
03:38depending on who's telling the story.
03:42Really, that's altering the narrative itself
03:46and it's very powerful.
03:48You know, Shauna,
03:50there was nothing surprising about her work.
03:53I knew how she would frame,
03:55how she would frame the entire film.
03:58And in all honesty,
04:00maybe one or two things that surprised me
04:02were when I watched the film,
04:05which was my daughter, my oldest.
04:19Who never really saw how it is.
04:26I never had a chance to see how it affected her.
04:30To see her mother go through the pain.
04:41She felt the pain
04:45and how she was revealing on camera
04:49and as a mother, seeing my child
04:52expose herself in that way,
04:55it hits me every time.
05:02And then my granddaughter
05:04and the way she looked at me,
05:07that was extremely powerful.
05:10Those are the two things.
05:11And my two brothers' comments
05:14that validated and I had to hear them finally say that.
05:23The little things,
05:23the little things that mean a lot to me,
05:25that's what surprised me.
05:27I think something that was really interesting to me
05:29about the movie was looking at
05:31what you wanted to see in Hollywood happen
05:33and then Troy's Oscar being such a big moment.
05:37Now it's been a few years since that
05:39and we're back at Sundance
05:41where that all started.
05:42I guess, Wick, how do you reflect on that moment now,
05:45several years later?
05:46Is there anything you'd like to see continued
05:50to have a momentum for change?
05:52Yeah, what are your thoughts on that moment now?
05:58In all honesty, there's still no change.
06:04There's always like,
06:09yes, you've done it.
06:11Yes, you've done it.
06:14Yay.
06:16And I always say to myself, yes,
06:17but I know it's always temporary.
06:19It's always a temporary celebration,
06:21at least for our community.
06:23You know, they say, oh, let's wait a few more years,
06:25a couple of years, 10 years, 15 years.
06:27Okay, and then another person and we, yay, yay.
06:30I think that's what probably will happen.
06:32Kota was several years ago
06:34and now here we are, several years ago.
06:37I think there's one sentence in the film
06:39that I think a lot of people missed
06:41is that Marley has not worked since Kota.
06:44How is that possible?
06:46I think
06:49the system is made and built
06:52by people that live a different experience than we do
06:56and they expect people like us to somehow figure it out,
07:02somehow figure out how to navigate the system.
07:04And they're like, look, you did it.
07:06But the system is still exactly the same.
07:09It's almost like we expect it and I'm tired of it.
07:13And that needs to change.
07:17I mean, we are celebrating and it's great.
07:20Great, let's do it again.
07:22Now, not waiting for it any longer.
07:28We pitched a lot of projects together.
07:31This is not the first time
07:32that Marley and I have tried to work together.
07:35Just PBS, because it's public television,
07:37they were like, yeah, let's do it.
07:39They were willing to take a risk
07:41that many networks who really rely on money,
07:45who really rely on deals don't take that risk.
07:49Like a lot of times Marley and I are pitching projects
07:51and we hear people say, oh, nope,
07:53we have one deaf character on this animated TV show.
07:56It's a half hour.
07:57And then it's like, she's deaf, she doesn't sign,
07:59but we can't do another deaf person, another deaf project.
08:02There are so many stories, amazing stories.
08:06They run the gamut of them.
08:07And I say, look, there are hearing stories
08:10made by hearing people.
08:12There are deaf stories made by deaf people too,
08:14but they don't have to be that way too.
08:15They don't have to be entirely deaf.
08:16She's a writer.
08:18She runs the entire spectrum.
08:20She's a producer, she's a director, I'm an actor.
08:22I don't write, but yes, but I am also a producer.
08:25I direct.
08:27So what are we waiting for?
08:30Why?
08:34We don't bite.
08:36We are as creative.
08:38I think it depends on like what has been done.
08:43They're like, oh, this is the formula that makes money.
08:45Okay, one plus one equals two.
08:48And that's how they make things and have made things.
08:52They think, you know, there's this character that's deaf,
08:54therefore we cast a deaf actor who looks like this
08:57at this specific age, there.
09:00But I think the world, like people,
09:03I think we're all smarter than that.
09:05I think that people really do love different things
09:09that haven't been done before.
09:10And so now everything is an opportunity.
09:12We have the opportunity to do something different.
09:14I think that audiences will respond.
09:15I think that's why CODA had such a huge success.
09:17But everyone's like, oh, we did CODA, we're done.
09:20You know, and for a business
09:22that is supposed to be about creativity,
09:24they're really not being creative at all.
09:26Storytelling is the heart of it all.
09:29We have plenty of stories.
09:32I don't know.
09:33Plenty.
09:34Plenty of them.