Rose Ayling-Ellis makes stance clear on non-deaf actors playing deaf roles controversy: ‘Loses all that!’
Rose Ayling-Ellis has entered the debate on representation in the entertainment industry by sharing her opinion on non-deaf actors playing deaf roles.
The 30-year-old deaf actress was speaking to GB News and other press as she prepares for the launch of her new ITV crime drama Code of Silence, where she stars as a civilian swept up in a high-stakes police investigation.
In the show, Ayling-Ellis plays Allison Brooks – a deaf canteen worker in a Canterbury police station struggling to make enough money to pay rent. Her world is turned upside down when she is enlisted to help on a major case.
Allison is able to help detectives work out what a notorious stick-up gang is planning with a skill she uses every day, lip reading – quickly making her an invaluable part of the investigation.
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However, things begin to get dangerous as she starts to be drawn further into the case and, as a result, crosses paths with Liam (Kieron Moore), the gang’s newest recruit.
The show prominently features lip reading and the challenges of being deaf as a central part of its narrative. It is also one of the first dramas to feature a deaf protagonist, played by an actor who also lives with the same condition.
To Ayling-Ellis, casting a deaf actor was essential to properly represent that community, as a lack of hearing was more than an affliction; it was a core tenet of her being and perception of everything around her.
“It’s part of my identity, so it’s a part of who I am. So, whatever I bring to the character, it will automatically be there. The way I behave, the way I communicate, the way I look at people, it’s automatically there,” she said while speaking at a screening for Code of Silence.
To that end, Ayling-Ellis felt that non-deaf actors taking on such roles could never fully realise the subtleties of her experience. The 30-year-old explained: “If you don’t have that (deafness), you have someone now pretending to be there, it will lose all that.”
The question of able-bodied actors playing disabled characters has been a divisive one in recent years, with several performers being challenged for taking on such roles.
Most recently, Felicity Jones faced backlash for portraying a wheelchair bound woman in 2024’s acclaimed historical epic, The Brutalist. However, the 41-year-old actress believed the character’s ability to stand in some scenes made it “okay for me, as an able-bodied person, to do.”
Ayling-Ellis enthusiastically welcomed more and better representation for the deaf community in media, explaining: “When I was younger, I didn’t have anyone (deaf) on TV at all.”
She marvelled at “how much different” her early relationship with media would be if that representation had been there.
Additionally, the actress also celebrated the “power of TV” to better communicate the deaf experience to able-bodied viewers too.
In her mind, properly done visual media allowed viewers to be introduced to new experiences without the filter and preconceptions they may have subconsciously approached ideas with otherwise.
“TV kind of breaks through that and shows you a different world. That is the power of TV, and that’s why it’s important. And I love what I do,” Ayling-Ellis glowed.