Troy Kotsur is the first Deaf man who wins an Academy Award in a supporting actor role.
His CODA costar, Marlee Matlin, was the first Deaf actor to win an Oscar all the way back in 1987, for which she received the best actress award for Children of a Lesser God .
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Troy Kotsur has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
“This is amazing to be here on this journey. I cannot believe I’m here,” Kotsur began. “Thank you so much to all the members of the Academy for recognizing my work.”
People in the audience and online were rightfully moved.
“I was planning on teaching them some dirty sign language, but Marlee Matlin told me to behave myself,”
“So don’t worry, Marlee, I won’t drop any f-bombs in my speech today. Instead, I want to thank all the wonderful deaf theater stages where I was allowed and given the opportunity to develop my craft as an actor.”
“He was the best signer in our family.”
“But he was in a car accident and he became paralyzed from the neck down. And he no longer was able to sign. Dad, I learned so much from you I’ll always love you. You are my hero.”
He dedicated his award to the deaf community.
But, he followed up by saying it was also dedicated to “the CODA community, and the disabled community.”
“This is our moment.” he finished.
People on Twitter were absolutely thrilled to learn that the actor had won.
It was not only a historical moment for the actor, but also proof that diverse films matter, and will continue to matter.
However, many were not surprised that he would be taking home the Oscar, since he has been SWEEPING through award season.
He has been winning every award left and right, as he very well should. I cannot stress this enough: his performance was beyond brilliant.
Needless to say, this will go down in history.
And it was a well-deserved moment too. If you haven’t yet seen CODA, this is definitely your sign to go ahead and watch it. It’s certainly one of the most powerful films that have been released over the past year.
