I would love to switch on my TV and see a disabled person talking about something they are genuinely interested in or acting out a part that doesn't just focus on their impairment.
Having a son with a disability helps makes Walter White a more sympathetic character. There's no story line that shows Walt Jr. going through the things that you go through as a teenager with a disability. It's always his relationship to other characters. That was my issue with it.
I think one in five Americans has a disability of some sort. That's 20% of the population, and yet we rarely ever see people with disabilities on-screen, and their stories and their resilience and their zest for life and their humor and their humanity.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.
Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do.
I was recently appointed by President Obama to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. I am so excited that the President trusts me to advise him on things that are important to people with disabilities!
I try to bring awareness, not just to CP but to all disabilities in the sense that it's knowledge. My disability gave me so much knowledge that I was able to take into 'Breaking Bad' and to grow and to learn.
Having adaptive events televised in the X Games is huge. There are people out there who might want to do this but don't think they can. They can see us out here tearing it up. That's going to help people realize that if you want something bad enough, you can get there.
Disability is as visual as race. If a wheelchair user can't play Beyonce, then Beyonce can't play a wheelchair user.
A lot of people don't want to hire disabled actors. They think you're going to take twice as long over a shot, or they don't want have to put up a ramp for disabled access. They think, 'Why would I do that when I can just hire an able-bodied actor to play the disabled character?'
It's undeniable that what we are taught as a culture to believe about disability is at odds with traditional notions of masculinity.
With L'Oreal, I get to be Aimee Mullins, model. No qualifier. And that means everything to me.
Disability is articulated as a struggle, an unnecessary burden that one must overcome to the soundtrack of a string crescendo. But disabled lives are multi-faceted - brimming with personality, pride, ambition, love, empathy, and wit.
There was an agent who wanted to book me for Glee. He lied and said I could sing. He was like, "If you need a guy in a wheelchair who has a great voice, I've got your guy!" I was like, "What are you talking about?" .
I played an old woman in a wheelchair at 18.
The Paralympics have for too long been considered the poor cousin of the Olympics. It's always run after the main games and rarely gets anything like the media coverage.
Beggars market their incapacity.
People like Ellie Simmonds, David Weir, and Hannah Cockroft have become superstars alongside the likes of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis. I think it has changed attitudes to disability.
I'm proud that I can represent, within Cyborg, a couple of different groups. One being people of color, but also, Cyborg is a superhero that is in many ways disabled. So, being able to give representation from that end as well is something that's really powerful to me.
I never in a million years thought I would be able to be a Paralympic athlete.
Paralympics... fascinating because just watching anyone with a major disability trying to do everyday chores is fun to watch.
I think it is going to be wonderful. I went to the Paralympics in Beijing and have seen how brilliant the sport is at first hand. People are going to love it. It is going to change people's attitudes to Paralympians and it is going to be a great show.
When I ask people what they think of when they hear the term 'cerebral palsy,' I usually get one of two responses. They either think of a smiling, crumpled child in a wheelchair on a poster or commercials on late night TV with lawyers enticing parents of CP kids to sue the pants off their obstetrician.
When FDR died in 1945, he was still paralyzed from the waist down. After he died, his portrait was put on the dime. Through his illness, he went out of his way to minimize his difficulties. Of the thousands of pictures taken of him, only two show him in a leg brace or a wheelchair.
The Southbank Centre Unlimited Festival was a distinct moment in time, an amazing counterpoint to the London 2012 Paralympics. There is no question that a major shift in perspective is taking place, that the world is waking up and greeting - as if for the first time - the extraordinary community of people with disability.
