The Top 10 Best Movie Characters that Use Sign Language
It’s Great to See Sign Language Represented on the Big Screen!
To be honest, this was one of the more difficult lists I’ve had to put together for Stars & Popcorn since it turns out not a lot of movies have deaf or mute characters. Even fewer actually have characters that use sign language. Recently though, there’s been almost a surge when it comes to sign language in film. Several films last year featured characters that use sign language, and this year, A Quiet Place is hitting theaters and all the trailers have heavily featured sign language. That’s why this week I thought I would take a look at character’s that have used sign language in film. Now, not all of the character’s on this list are mute or deaf, and one might not even be human. Needless to say, it’s a list that has a wide variety of characters, but they all have one thing in common. They’re the 10 Best Movie Characters that Use Sign Language.
Oh, and I tried to avoid characters based on real people. So don’t expect to see a bunch of Helen Kellers on this list.
10. Ares- John Wick 2
How do you solve the problem of Ruby Rose not being the best actress in the world? Well, casting her as a mute hit woman counts. Ares isn’t around for a lot of John Wick: Chapter 2 (which is to be expected of anyone sent to kill cinema’s greatest assassin), but the few times she does appear she uses sign language to communicate. Unfortunately for her, she makes the assumption that not very many people know ASL and tries to mouth off to John Wick. He calmly returns the favor with a bit of signing of his own. While she might not be the most developed character on this list, she manages to cause plenty of trouble for John Wick and that speaks to what a badass she is.
9. HW- There Will Be Blood
Daniel Day-Lewis is not a nice man in There Will Be Blood. In fact, he’s a bit of a bastard. Luckily, he’s not the one making this list. His adopted son HW does though. HW was not taken in because of Daniel Plainview’s huge heart, rather the boy was adopted to make him seem more like a family man. At first, Daniel takes a keen interest in HW, grooming him to eventually become his business partner. When an accident leaves HW deaf though, Plainview starts to take less and less of an interest in him. Shipping him off to various boarding schools. HW might not have a huge part in the film, but the adult version of the character is played by deaf actor Russell Howard. There Will Be Blood was his first feature film and lead to him playing deaf characters in a number of movies since then.
8. Lara- Beyond Silence
Beyond Silence shares a lot of similarities to another movie featuring sign language, Mr. Holland’s Opus in it’s theme of deafness and the world of music. In this film though, Lara is the daughter of two deaf-mute parents and serves as an interpreter for them from a young age as she’s hearing and fluent in sign language. Of course, Lara discovers that she has an incredible talent when it comes to music and eventually wants to move away to study it in Berlin. Her father struggles to cope with the idea that his daughter is so impassioned when it comes to a world he can’t be a part of with her. The two clash over her dream and struggle to rebuild their relationship as both try to be more understanding of each other.
7. Alicia ‘Hammer Girl’- The Raid 2
The Raid 2 is filled with all sorts of quirky and terrifying characters, but one of the most intimidating is Alicia AKA Hammer Girl. I’ll give you three guesses what her weapons of choice are in the film. She never speaks in the film and only communicates with her brother “Baseball Bat Man” through sign language, so it’s unclear if she is deaf or mute. Either way, she is a terror throughout this movie and I found it refreshing to have a villain (especially a total badass) using sign language. Though there isn’t much used in the film (I suppose she is a woman of few words), her disability isn’t flaunted in a way that seems like a gimmick (the two hammers are more than enough) instead it gives her a backstory without having to say a word.
6. Sarah Norman- Children of a Lesser God
Could I have a list of characters using sign language in film and not include Marlee Matlin as Sarah Norman in Children of a Lesser God? Well, I think you know that answer as of now. The film is about a teacher at a school for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children that pushes Sarah to learn how to speak with her mouth. The relationship between them becomes incredibly complicated since Sarah doesn’t like the fact that he tries to push her to become more “hearing friendly” by reading his lips and talking. The film tackles the stigma that the Deaf and Mute face as the rest of the world expects them to change in order to make things more comfortable for them. Matalin won the Academy Award for her performance in the film, so there was no way this list was going to happen without her.