Mark Ruffalo, Danny DeVito urge Hollywood to promote actors with disabilities

Mark Ruffalo and Danny DeVito are among the actors to urge Hollywood to cast more disabled actors and embrace disability as a key facet of diversity in order to erase the stigma that surrounds disability.

According to Fox News, a letter containing the signatures of many leading Hollywood performers and creators calling on the entertainment industries to include disabled performers has permeated the whole show and no sign of a letting-down.

The letter received by Deadline on Friday confirmed the entertainment industry has made progress to promote diversity.

Diversity and related subjects such as race, immigration, and sexual orientation were explicitly staged 38 times at the 2019 Academy Awards.

The letter was shared by the Ruderman family foundation, and signed by actors including Norman Lear, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito, Jason Alexander, Mark Ruffalo, and many others.

According to Fox News, the letter further says: "We applaud the industry for elevating these issues to the world's largest and most glamorous stage. But in the history of the Academy Awards, among the 61 Oscar nominees and 27 winners playing characters with a disability, only two were authentically portrayed by an actor with a disability."

Twenty per cent of the world's population is visually or invisibly disabled, making this the world's largest group. But disabled people are being systematically excluded from social and economic mobility opportunities, added the letter.

The Ruderman Foundation makes a call for the industry's big performers and for others to commit to audition actors with disabilities, this improves their visibility and increases the total pool of talent. Only then will the entertainment industry finally realise its tremendous leadership potential in diversity, inclusion, social justice, and civil rights.