International educator, disability advocate and fashionista Sinéad Burke joins Krista Smith as our special guest and co-host on episode 4 of More Like This. In spirit of the power of representation, Vanessa Kirby discusses her award-winning role portraying loss after labor in Pieces of a Woman; Burke interviews Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, co-creators of the Sundance Audience winner, Crip Camp, about how disability rights were won in America; Finally, Krista interviews Burke about her activism as a disabled person and her company, Tilting the Lens. Take off those rose-colored glasses.
International educator, disability advocate and fashionista Sinéad Burke joins Krista Smith as our special guest and co-host on episode 4 of More Like This. In spirit of the power of representation, Vanessa Kirby discusses her award-winning role portraying loss after labor in Pieces of a Woman; Burke interviews Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht, co-creators of the Sundance Audience winner, Crip Camp, about how disability rights were won in America; Finally, Krista interviews Burke about her activism as a disabled person and her company, Tilting the Lens. Take off those rose-colored glasses.
Krista Smith: Welcome to “More Like This,” a podcast from “Netflix Queue,” the journal that celebrates the people, ideas and process of creating great entertainment. I'm Krista Smith. I've spent over 20 years interviewing some of the biggest names in Hollywood. And on this show, I'm bringing you fresh new perspectives from across the entertainment industry, with the kind of access only [00:00:23] Netflix can offer.
But I won't be doing it alone. I get to collaborate with some of the best writers, interviewers and experts in the business. My co-host this week is an author, educator, lecturer and inclusion activist for disabled people. She's done a Ted talk, spoken at the white house, and she's the director of tilting the lens, a consultancy working to accelerate, systemic and cultural change through innovation and design.
[00:00:52] She's a contributing editor to British Vogue and has been featured on the cover as well. To top it all off. She's a close friend of Victoria, Becca. I'd like to welcome to our show. Sinéad Burke.
[00:01:05] Sinéad Burke: Thank you so much for having me. I'm not sure those credentials fit a visual description of what I look like right now.
[00:01:13] So. I suppose distill the veil of the glamor. I'll tell you what I looked like and where I am right now is that I am in my hometown in Ireland, which is just kind of in the middle of the country. And I'm actually nestled in my brother's bedroom because it's still the middle of the holidays. People have not gone back to work, even from a remote perspective.
[00:01:35] So finding a quiet space to talk to you was a little difficult. And I am wearing a blue cashmere knit jumper that has a rib stitch on the cuffs and also on the wasteland. And my hair is longer than it has ever been. Thanks to the pandemic. And it's gently waving because I really haven't done anything
[00:01:57] to it except move my hands through. But yes, I am a white woman with Brown eyes, Brown hair, and I am a little person. I stand at the height of three foot, five inches tall. But that's me. If you were looking at me, where are you?
[00:02:12] Krista Smith: Well, I like the use of jumper because in America we always say sweater. So I am in a red sweater leftover from the festivities of Christmas, but it's, it's been a little chilly here in Los Angeles, California.
[00:02:25] And I know, I do say that with a grain of salt here in the land of sunshine, but I am at the recording studio where I record most of my podcasts, unless I'm in my husband's closet at my house. And, uh, I am a white woman and I do have Brown hair and Brown eyes as well. So here we are. It's lovely to speak with you.
[00:02:48] Thank you so much for coming on the show. What have you been. Uh, watching lately on Netflix.
[00:02:54] Sinéad Burke: It's funny. I seem to have found myself in all of these unpredictable corners of Netflix. I've been watching a lot of Norwegian dramas. I just finished the show called “Occupied.” Which is based in Norway and a new prime minister has just been elected and in order to be sustainable, he has decided that Norway is going to turn off the oil and the gas supply in order to create renewable energy.
[00:03:21] But as you might imagine, governing bodies in close contents are not too pleased. It's really interesting in thinking about social cultures and norms and what does independence and autonomy and individuality mean within a collective. I think perhaps it was particularly interesting for me as an Irish person with Brexit just happening over the waters, but it's been really interesting to move through different geographies and different languages.
[00:03:49] And thanks to accessibility on Netflix, be that with audio descriptions or English captioning. It gives me access to new realms that I never would have explored ever before. So I'm currently watching that and about to start Bridgerton. I really needed to begin, but I haven't, as of yet.
[00:04:06] Krista Smith: I already started Bridgerton. [laughs] it's delicious.
[00:04:10] Sinéad Burke: I've heard after episode five, I can't watch it with my parents, which is good news. So maybe I should start there.
[00:04:17] Krista Smith: Well, speaking of your, your parents, these have been very interesting. Uh, times in terms of the holidays, how has it been for you? How have you broke tradition in, in this pandemic?
[00:04:29] Sinéad Burke: I am the eldest of five children, which means even among my most closest family unit of my parents and my siblings and I, we are a big family.
[00:04:41] Most of us live at home, some of us do not. And I think there's been a real understanding that making this year different has been so important that by each of us making an effort in order to observe restrictions in order to ensure that those who are working on the front lines, those who are most vulnerable, medically will get to Christmas next year, I think is something that we are really looking forward to.
[00:05:07] Krista Smith: Hmm. Wow. The oldest of five, I kind of, you had me at that.
[00:05:12] Sinéad Burke: There's so many of us and there's like two years between each of us. And it's been really wonderful growing up because as the only little person among my siblings, I've always been their eldest sister and not necessarily their biggest sister. Um, but my brother and my sisters are just really wonderful people.
[00:05:28] They've taught me the importance of kindness and selflessness in the sense that. They're always observing what they can be doing to make somebody else's life a little bit easier, if that makes sense. And that can be helping me reach something because it's a pie or it can be asking somebody, ‘how are you” and not waiting for a performed answer, which is I'm fine.
[00:05:49] Or if you're Irish, I'm grand, it's really waiting to see, but somebody needs to talk about and to speak about and to listen.
[00:05:59] Krista Smith: Well, that kind of in an odd way makes a perfect segue into “Pieces Of A Woman, which is a film coming, uh, to Netflix this week. And it stars Vanessa Kirby. And it's all about kind of just what you described, like listening and giving people time.
[00:06:16] And how are you? And it's a whole other look on how we experience grief and how individual it can be. And this is a film about a woman who loses a child and what that means, how she processes that and how different it is for everybody and the expectation of how she's supposed to process that
[00:06:40] Sinéad Burke: such an incredible actress.
[00:06:42] And to see her take on this role is. I don't know. I don't know Vanessa, but it felt me with pride to watch her. What really struck me with this film was the visibility of something that has been made. So invisible talking about losing children as a disabled woman. This film really spoke to me in that I have to work for them.
[00:07:03] If I choose to have a child with somebody who also has morphism, there is a great likelihood that if I became pregnant, that that pregnancy wouldn't survive birth. And that's a reality that I may have to face into in my future. And when we talk about the importance of storytelling, the importance of visibility, watching this film, seeing Vanessa act.
[00:07:30] The grief with such authenticity and such pain. It wasn't glamorized and it was raw and vulnerable and intimate. Gave me vocabulary to begin to describe something that might be in my trajectory. To have such caliber of acting from Vanessa with a storyline that is a reality for so many. It was really powerful.
[00:07:58] Krista Smith: I got it to talk with the star of pieces of a woman, Vanessa Kirby, American audiences have come to know Vanessa from her breakout role alongside Tom cruise and the action-packed mission, impossible franchise. More recently, she's been adored for her award-winning portrayal of a young princess Margaret in season one and two of the crown.
[00:08:22] It's great to see you, Vanessa, where in the world am I finding you? And what are you doing right now?
[00:08:27] Vanessa Kirby: I'm at home in London. I live with my sister and two friends. So I'm in my bedroom right now, which is where all the important things happen.
[00:08:36] Krista Smith: Yeah. Well, you had quite a year or let's just say a fall. It started with a bang with winning best actress at the Venice film festival, which had to be pretty amazing.
[00:08:48] Vanessa Kirby: It was one of the most surreal experiences my life, for sure. Because in those couple of months leading up to it, when we knew the films that got in, which was a miracle in itself, truly. And I never been to Venice before the festival. And so the whole thing was a bit like a crazy dream. Honestly, I didn't stop smiling. The entire way.
[00:09:09] Krista Smith: Well, let's, let's go back to “Pieces Of A Woman” and kind of how it came to you and your feelings when you first read that script. Because I know a lot of actors like to lean into things that terrify them or scare them. And this had to be one of those things for you, because this is just such a daunting project emotionally and physically.
[00:09:31] Can you talk to me a little bit about that fear?
[00:09:34] Vanessa Kirby: I guess we all have a kind of a weird Drive to push into the parts of ourselves that we didn't know lived there some way, or part of being human that maybe we didn't we don't know about. And those things are always scary inside yourself, you know? And so the pieces, yeah, it was, it was, it was fucking terrifying because I haven't given birth.
[00:09:58] And I thought, who am I to carry that on screen? You know, in a way, when so many women across the planet, uh, have done it and men have been by their sides. And, and I haven't, um, as well as knowing that I'd even have to get a little bit close to understanding what It might feel like to lose a baby in that way.
[00:10:21] And that, that was even bigger, you know? And then as I went into sort of the research for it, because I was so scared about not okay. Right. I then began to find women to talk to them and friends of friends, contact women that really willing to talk about it. And all of every single one of them said. No one's ever asked me, no one finds it easy to talk to me about it when it happened since, and society doesn't really want to hear it.
[00:10:49] If it's too, it's almost too uncomfortable. And I thought, Oh my God, I'm so glad that we might be doing a film for the first time that really convinced that that really difficult subject. And I kind of felt, even though I was terrified of it and might get it wrong that I had to try. I hope in many ways, the film might help even one person feel a little bit less lonely because it's represented something they may have felt.
[00:11:16] Krista Smith: Well, also what makes this film so unique and visceral and, and you're just dropped into it from the very beginning. Is that the way it's shot that first opening sequence? Basically the bursting scene is all one take and you never let go when, as an audience member, you're in it. And I have given birth two times, um, it was different.
[00:11:41] I was in a hospital, but I know that that ugly, beautiful feeling that's happening to your body and things are happening that you just can't even, you've never felt before. You only feel in that experience? What was that like?
[00:11:56] Vanessa Kirby: I was so excited about the ambition. We had to do it all in one take, and I was actually really relieved because the minute that you break that up, it becomes fake.
[00:12:04] And I was so scared about doing fake birth, you know, and in my research I was, I started off watching tons of documentaries and all of them are edited and censored and you know, all the nice bits or like little snippets. And I was like, I don't, I still don't understand when a contraction comes in and why, and how much space between them that your water can break at any time.
[00:12:27] You know, I just felt so humbled and totally ignorant. And so, you know, then I found an obstetrician who was amazing and let me shadow her and spent lots of time in the labor ward or the midwives teaching the moves or so many videos on my phone of them showing me all the moves or the kind of like really animal moves, but still I could never have done it without.
[00:12:47] This miraculous thing happening where this amazing woman came in and allowed me to watch her give birth. And I, it was just, I just remember those six hours watching her just been, I know that this is one of the biggest moments in my life, like to be in a room when a baby's born. And I hadn't had that experience ever before, nor did I even imagine what it would be like.
[00:13:10] So, and after that, then I thought, okay, now I, now I feel able to act it. So we had the ambition to do up to 30 minutes of at one, one take. And, um, I knew that I had to do all my own work prior to, to understand if I did turn up on set and just do it. I might be able to not completely fall flat on my ass and be an embarrassment to every woman that's ever done it.
[00:13:37] And every man that’s ever it and watched it. Um, and so we did four takes the first day and two, the second. And also it was just so exhilarating. Cause you, you could just be in the present moment with what was happening. You didn't have to break for lunch or, you know, change your lighting setup or whatever.
[00:13:55] You could just, just live it weirdly. I feel so humbled by it. And so, and it's like having done it in a pseudo way, you know, I haven't done it for real, but I, I kind of weirdly semi know what the experience is like. It's really bizarre thing.
[00:14:10] Krista Smith: But I loved reading that there was a lot of rehearsal happening and Ellen Burstyn his apartment and New York on the upper West side, I believe.
[00:14:19] And that to me just felt like, Ugh, it's how fantastic is that? You're just going to her apartment, like, first of all, just that intimate space to work out these scenes and work out these relationships. How was that? I mean, I imagine it was the first time you've met her. Right.
[00:14:37] Vanessa Kirby: Yeah. I remember us coming up in the lift, just being like, Oh my God, we're meeting Ellen Burstyn.
[00:14:41] And we're going to her house, but the minute we walked, it's just, this is just so lucky that you're with a group of actors that you happen to be doing, exploring something with, and you all really, you feel familiar to each other. You know, and, and talks a lot about stage work and you kind of have that real, you know, w when you're on stage, all you've got is each other, you know, you don't, you can't cut, you can't walk off.
[00:15:05] You have to just keep going. Even if it's going really badly or somethings, you know, and not judge the previous moment or the next moment just, and you're only, you're only life raft as the other person. And I think we're all those kind of actors. And so the minute we walked in and we go. God, I don't know. None of us know how we, how we're going to even touch this film with this level of heaviness in a way.
[00:15:26] And we just locked in and trusted each other. And decided to hold hands and go for it and see what happened. But it, yeah, it was a very surreal moment walking to her house. And also, you know, she's got like a million awards, you know, in one room and she's like, she's just amazing. She's such an icon. We both so nervous.
[00:15:45] But I was at, I stayed overnight at her house a couple of times. Um, just so we would start to feel like family and build that, build that past together. Um, and you know, we speak every day now. She's like family. So it was such a gift.
[00:16:00] Krista Smith: Yeah. That your, your relationship is so strong in the film obviously.
[00:16:05] And the other big set piece was that dining room scene, you know, the dinner scene and you two were going at it. And again, totally believable that mother and daughter at odds. And when she's just coming at you full strength, I love what she had said that, that you had told her, you know, really. Bring it make me, make me go to court, change my mind right now.
[00:16:28] And she just, that's being a person of the theater just loved that
[00:16:32] Vanessa Kirby: We were working on the script, Kata, Kornél, Ellen and I were working on the, that section at half of the scene for ages, not quite knowing what it had to be. And suddenly I, if I remember, I think in that moment, I just thought, Oh, the whole thing has to be about trying to get her to go.
[00:16:52] To court or else there is no case. And therefore there was no movie really. So we started the scene and it wasn't really working. And I started, you know, really feeling, feeling Martha's feelings and suddenly I just yeah. Turned to her before the camera roll and I went make me go to court, make me go to court. Make me go to court and she just, she really made me go, you know, it's just it.
[00:17:18] I mean, it's Ellen, isn't it. So she just didn't. I remember being on the other side of the camera, watching her do that speech has been like, Oh my God, it's like a Requiem moment, you know, which has always been such a, a moment. In my, you know, inspiring acting moment for me, that speech she has in that. Um, and it was all happening in front of me. So I was just sort of witnessed.
[00:17:39] Krista Smith: Yeah. It feels like this experience is, is one that changed you in a way. And, or it's not one that you're going to not take with you moving forward. Let's put it that way, but it feels like your first lead call sheet wise, all of that.
[00:17:54] Vanessa Kirby: Totally. I feel, I feel really changed from it. I, I felt. I didn't know when I was going to lead a movie for the first time, but I knew at some point I would like to very much. And I also knew that you, I always felt like I had to earn my dues for that a little bit. I never forget. There was, um, when I was at university, I would go off and forth from, I was university outside London, like three hours.
[00:18:16] And I go up on the train for some weird auditions in London. And I remember walking into the station on the way to town, just going someday some way this will, this will pay off. You know, so when this came to me, I guess I thought, Oh, I think this is it. And I, I know how much I care about this and how much I want this birth to be accurate for women, because I realized through my own research and I hadn't seen, you know, the woman I saw felt really nauseous.
[00:18:46] All the way through and have been sick a lot that morning. And I wouldn't have known that from any documentary. So I just, I just imagine I felt really sick in the film and that's why I burp a lot, which is going to be really hard for some people to watch. But you know, weirdly in Venice, a lot of people came up to me, went, thank you for the burping.
[00:19:05] I didn't understand what they meant. But then after I think on reflection, I go, Oh, I'm really, I'm so proud that you know, that I learned from that amazing woman who gave me the gift of me to watch her and knowing that that's what really happens to a woman when she's in her most. How power actually in that moment, you know, as you said, it's, it was horrifying and fucking like profound and majestic and divine and sacred.
[00:19:37] And also, you know, she felt so sick. She was gonna throw up at any minute or poo herself. Know what do you mean? Like that's, but that's being human, you know, that's also being a man. That's all the parts of it. So I felt. I just knew when I read this and I started it, I just thought, Oh, I'm really lucky that this is the one.
[00:19:57] Krista Smith: What are some of the things that you're, you're hoping to do in the next couple of years or so. And you want to get back on theater? Like, how are you feeling?
[00:20:03] Vanessa Kirby: I've always had a dream to sort of be able to create and find things and create women on screen that we haven't seen before in different ways that we haven't seen before.
[00:20:11] And that's, what's so exciting. I think there's definitely space. And it's opened up so much in the last few years and now more than ever where. Female writers are being asked to write their experience of it, you know, and then female directors and, and us as actresses. There's, it's something that I really want to be a part of.
[00:20:28] And I feel like I have a responsibility to do, to be honest. Um, Which is why the burping was probably the most flattering compliment I've ever had on an acting job, truthfully, you know, I didn't realize that that would be a surprise to people. Because I mean, my God, we all burn, you know, and we should show that life on screen.
[00:20:51] Krista Smith: Thank you so much. Uh, Vanessa, it's great to catch up with you. Stay safe and sane out there. And I look forward to when we can actually see each other in person at some point, hopefully soon, hopefully very soon.
[00:21:04] Vanessa Kirby: I hope I, so hope, I'm gonna give you the biggest hug.
[00:21:13] Krista Smith: To hear my full name interview with Vanessa. Listen to her recent episode of present company. Wherever you get podcasts, you can read the text version of this interview Netflix queue.com. That's Netflix Q U E U E.com. So Sinead we're so thrilled to have you. Sit down with co-directors Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham from “Crip Camp,” which is the documentary that, uh, first launched at Sundance and is as now been, uh, on Netflix for some time, just the name alone “Crip Camp,” you know exactly what it is.
[00:21:51] It's such a brash kind of un-PC title for what the film is really about, which is this camp that these disabled people went to and got to be. Free got to be treated like real human beings have, which is so incredible about this film is that the footage is all original and you really feel like you're in there with them and the trajectory that it takes following these kids into adulthood and how so many of them went on to become activists and, and how it really changed the course.
[00:22:24] And the narrative for disabled people is quite extraordinary. And then of course, The Obamas came on to, to be executive producers and whatnot. But why don't you tell me about talking with the filmmakers and what that was like for you personally, to meet them and to get to interview them?
[00:22:42] Sinéad Burke: There's this phrase and advocacy circles.
[00:22:44] If you can see it, you can be it. And when we think about disability representation in film, there've been some great examples in the past, but many of them played by non-disabled people. But if we think about representation and visibility as a new wave, we also want to see disabled people behind the camera, shaping the stories and framing them.
[00:23:08] And in many ways, for me, that's what makes Quip camp such a success, because this is told for by and with disabled people. So getting to virtually sit with Jim and the color of the co-directors of “Crip Camp” was just. Really, so incredible. The film charts, the history of disability rights, particularly in the U S but it is an ignition, I think, for a global disability rights movement in thinking about what does accessibility mean?
[00:23:39] What does inclusion mean? And in a pandemic where we talk about people who are. Vulnerable, that movement has never been more important. Nicole is a non-disabled woman. How is she an ally to Jim? Who is a disabled man co-directing this film whose background is not in directing, but actually in sound production.
[00:23:55] How do you code switch into that space and not feel like an imposter when there are so few people who look like you. In those spaces and in those rooms, but also asking them, how did they leverage the film to speak to that global community? It was wonderful. Just sitting with them as colleagues. I've been very fortunate in the past couple of months to work with them as an international impact advisor for the global campaign, thinking about disability, advocacy and rights.
[00:24:23] And I think what I learned most from speaking with them was Jim's final words were that he had just spoken to somebody who had said for the first time ever. A film had made them feel like they belong. Despite not knowing Jim or not knowing Nicole I'm really, it made me ask the question, what can I do to help other people feel like they belong?
[00:24:47] And maybe it's not creating a Netflix documentary produced by the Obamas. Maybe it is. It's unlikely though, but what can we each do as individuals or as collectives to make people feel like they belong? And film is such an important lens that we can create community around about. And for.
[00:25:10] Have you ever watched something and it has made you feel seen and heard in a way that you can't even begin to describe, or it's something that you needed to save, but didn't know how much you need it to see it. I can viscerally remember the moment that happened for me. It was a film called “Crip camp.”
[00:25:33] And I feel very honored to be sitting across virtually from two of the people who brought that film to life and who are responsible for its existence, Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham. Thank you so much for being here. How are you both
[00:25:50] Nicole Newnham: good. I'm really happy to be here with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation.
[00:25:56] Jim LeBrecht: And Sinéad, I got to say that, um, we're all drawn to light. And that's why we're here with you, Ok?
Sinéad Burke: Oh thank you so much
Jim LeBrecht: So yeah, you've been a wonderful leader in our community. So we’re really happy to be here.
[00:26:11] Sinéad Burke: I wanted to begin our conversation with each of us giving a visual description of ourselves.
[00:26:16] Jim LeBrecht: All right. Well, I was 64-year-old white guy with kind of a long gray goatee.
[00:26:22] I'm a Wheelchair user. I think you heard me just moving my chair a little closer to the microphone because indeed I, my lineage is in audio, so I darn well better sound really good here. I've got long hair, black glasses, and I've got a, um, a nice long sleeve teal shirt that, uh, it was from a shoe surf shop and there's a red wall behind me with a bunch of movie posters.
[00:26:48] Sinéad Burke: Uh, you'll be disappointed to learn that. Jim forgot to mention that three minutes before we began this recording, he took it this incredible hairband and ensured that his tussled locks were trapped with the hairband. It's, it's a visual delight that he failed to admit. So, I'm hoping that with you, Nicole.
[00:27:07] Nicole Newnham: Um, so I am a 51-year-old, white. Woman with blondish Brown hair that goes down to about my shoulders, COVID length. I have a, a red beaded necklace with some tourig beads in it on and a matching lipstick, because I did not understand that this one, an audio only interview [laughs]. And, uh, and I am wearing some sort of oval shaped glasses that were inspired by, um, Judy human's glasses in “Crip Camp.”
[00:27:36] And I'm sitting in my house in Oakland, California. Took a case with my son's Greek. Pazooki hanging on the wall behind me in the background.
[00:27:43] Sinéad Burke: I wanted to ask you the two of you have been friends for such a long time, and I've worked on lots of different projects together, but your relationship has been different in “Crip Camp” as co-directors how did you have to make space for one another in a way that was different on this project than the way you had worked previously?
[00:28:01] Jim LeBrecht: Although we've known each other for so long. And when I'm talking about three films, it was really with “Crip Camp” that we were really in each other's lives daily.
[00:28:11] We had to find and forge this collaboration that was business partners, friends, but underlying all of this, there was a real trust. That is the solid bedrock. I think what happened with us on our film?
[00:28:32] Nicole Newnham: Yeah, I would agree with that. I like to co-direct I've always co-directed for me, it's like making space for, for someone else to have kind of full agency in a project and working until you get to consensus, artistically and creatively, um, is something that I enjoy.
[00:28:50] I kind of took the lead on like the story architecture. I kind of the design of the story and how the edit fit together. And Jim took the lead on like, what does this film have to say? What is most important that it's going to say? And how is it going to be said in an authentic. True way that is going to, you know, speak to a disabled audience and, and authentically represent the disability community.
[00:29:19] It was tricky because it was Jim's life and it was a lot of really emotional, personal work that he had to do. And I was consistently in awe of how he was able to come into the room and, and look at a scene as a scene when it was also about. Some tender or very emotional part of his own life, you know, or it was about a person that he loved deeply from his past, but whom we were talking about as a character within the complicated architecture of story.
[00:29:52] Sinéad Burke: I think it's such a brilliant duality of skillsets and personalities bringing to something like this. But I remember watching it for those who may be listening to this who haven't seen “Crip Camp”. It's an extraordinary story of what starts out in camp, Jeanette, which is a place where before manual handling courses existed, disabled people went and found space to figure out who they are.
[00:30:20] And who they could be. And through that experience at the camp charts and narrative of the disability rights and disability justice movement in the U.S. But as Nicole has said, it's, it's deeply entrenched in Jim's own personal story, because he's not just a co-director, but as a protagonist and was in that camp.
[00:30:36] But Jim, what made you be an observer, but also a participant to such a historic moment that at the time was just your summer?
[00:30:46] Jim LeBrecht: All of that black and white footage in ‘71 was a result of this wonderful group of people called the people's video theater, coming to camp Jeanette. They showed up and wanted to take this new technology of portable video and use it as a tool.
[00:31:04] Right. Through marginalized communities, you know, and they said it was, let's make a film, you know, about, would you like to make a film about your camp and, um, they, so they, and they came to the drama and camera club and with their equipment. And then, um, shortly after that, they asked me if I'd like to do a tour of the camp.
[00:31:25] And so they strap this really kind of heavy tape deck to the handlebars of my push chair and then handed me this video camera, which wasn't terribly light either. Um, and somebody pushed me around camp. So I think it was probably Howard from the people's video theater that was with us. And one of the counselors.
[00:31:45] And as you can hear in our films, like, just tell us wherever you want to go. We'll we'll just go there.
[00:31:50] Sinéad Burke: Did you feel empowered by that process or observed?
[00:31:54] Jim LeBrecht: Oh, totally empowered, totally empowered. These folks could have come in and go into the camp director and said, how, how are you taking care of these, these poor handicap children. They didn't do that. They give us agency, they treated us like any other group of teenagers and young adults. And that just didn't really happen in our lives. You know?
[00:32:20] Sinéad Burke: Where do you think that came from? Like how, how do you think that approach manifested?
[00:32:25] Nicole Newnham: They were revolutionaries. They were, um, they were running these pop-up video theaters where they would like go to all different movements.
[00:32:33] Like they were with the Black Panthers. They were with the woman's movement. They were with the gay rights movement at the time. And one thing we came to understand was that Ben Levine, who was doing some of the filming and some of the interviewing had actually done a lot of work in Pennsylvania with young people with disabilities in kind of a program in which he would take these large
[00:32:56] photographs black and white photographs, like large format photographs of them that he could blow up really huge. And he did that as kind of a, um, a process of sort of workshop thing, kind of with them, you know, what they thought about themselves and how they felt about themselves. He brought a lot of real heart and sensitivity to the work.
[00:33:14] Sinéad Burke: And I wonder Jim, and thinking about that as a vehicle for empowerment, when the filming and the camp ended that year. And you returned to your community. Did you have any sense or was there any change in yourself from experiencing that moment during, from not necessarily from being the protagonist in your own story?
[00:33:36] Jim LeBrecht: I had the perspective of a 15-year-old boy. So, I mean, I thought it was really, really cool that I got to do this, but I have to say that. This was an amazing experience at the camp, but there were so many other things at that camp that added to my enrichment that added to my sense of self and learning how to really be prideful and to really kind of see that life it could be a better place.
[00:34:08] I, and you know, I'm not trying to say that, like I went to camp and I was depressed and, or whatever, for some, it looks like the morning that you go to first day of camp is unlike any other morning. I would bet honed out of bed normally on the, on the kind of typical 15-year-old kid that you have to throw a bucket of water on.
[00:34:28] Right? But it was BAM. But, I think what I'm trying to say is that. The overall experience, there really was what enriched me. But when I went back home, it was like, you know, I, I played baseball in my wheelchair. You know, I was waiting to see my friends on the block. And, and it's only through the years of looking back and especially obviously working on art film that I can actually see how critical those summers I spent at that camp were.
[00:34:58] Absolutely made my life what it was today or is today.
[00:35:03] Sinéad Burke: But I also love the idea that what is now such a revolutionary moment. Was kind of ordinary when you were 15, as all of these revolutionary moments in some ways are somewhat ordinaries with 15-year-old, because life just continues. You didn't know when that moment that the footage you had just recorded would go on to be a Netflix original film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama.
[00:35:25] And I kind of love the lack of ceremony around it as a teenager, not knowing what it would become. It only makes it. I suppose even, even more special in that sense, what impact would you like “Crip Camp” to continue to have, um, what changes have been made as of yet in the industry? Or what would you like to propel further?
[00:35:47] Jim LeBrecht: First off, I think there's a, kind of a, an amazing thing that seems to be happening this year. That stories around disability don't have to fall into the old traps. They don't have to be tragic or inspiration porn. And if they don't, because I think what “Crip Camp” shows is kind of the full rainbow of experiences that one has with living with a disability.
[00:36:17] That's what personally, what I'm hopeful for in the future is that when you have filmmakers with disabilities, Telling the stories and, and, and doing it well. You realize that that obviously that's the way to do it. And like that shouldn't be a surprise. This is what we know from every other margin community, right?
[00:36:37] So we need people as directors, as producers, as casting agents, you know, we need those people and I'm not saying that allies aren't important, but what are we all after in this world? Authenticity. We, we want something that feels real and dramatic and new and exciting and sexy and funny and compelling.
[00:37:02] Sinéad Burke: I have one final question for you, both. What do you wish your legacy to be?
[00:37:11] Jim LeBrecht: I would like my legacy to be that I've made a difference. A positive difference. Simple as that.
[00:37:20] Nicole Newnham: Yeah, I would like to leave behind stories that have made a positive difference and have offered beauty.
[00:37:27] Sinéad Burke: Jim and Nicole, I feel so very honored to be able to describe you as collaborators, as partners in a bigger project.
[00:37:37] Um, but even more so as friends I learned from both of you at different things every day. And I cannot thank you enough for bringing your whole selfs and your vulnerability and your curiosity to this conversation. Thank you. So, so much.
Nicole Newnham & Jim LeBrecht: Thank you.
[00:37:58] Krista, I can't thank you enough for allowing me to irritate Jim and Nicole with those questions. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I talked to them, but so thank you so much for that opportunity.
[00:38:11] Krista Smith: Well, Sinéad, now it's my turn to annoy you with questions. I mean, my first question is really very. Basic, like, how did you get into.
[00:38:22] Activism. Like, what was it for you? You're still so very young and you've been incredibly, uh, effective and prolific. And I mean, all joking aside, your resume is impressive. So my question to you is when, when did that moment happen for you when you realize this was your calling?
[00:38:45] Sinéad Burke: I'm not sure if there ever was a specific moment around activism.
[00:38:49] I think. I'm really lucky. My parents are extraordinary people. My dad is a little person like me. So, I grew up in a household where in many ways I knew that anything was possible. And my mother is just the most extraordinary human being who was an advocate for me when I couldn't advocate for myself. And from the earliest pages, my parents told me that I could do anything that I wanted to do, whether that was go to the moon or become an elementary school teacher that I may have to find a different way
[00:39:20] around it or different method by which to do it, but that didn't mean it was impossible. So, I grew up with this confidence of my own ambition. And really, I’m so very fortunate that that was nurtured within me. And so, I trained to be a teacher and I loved my time in the classroom. And I think what I learned in the classroom was that everybody else was really concerned about how my disability would make me less of a teacher.
[00:39:48] When actually what I discovered was that my disability defined me in the same way that being a woman and being Irish at it, shaped the lens through which I viewed the world. And it actually gave me the resources that I needed to be a good teacher. So, for example, on my very first day of school, a student asked me, why are you so small?
[00:40:07] Which is a great question. And I'd say, well, why are you so big? And they'd say, I dunno, I was just born like this. I'd say well, so was I and they go, okay, great. What page are we on? Being a teacher and being a disabled teacher gave me these skills to, I don't know, facilitate curiosity. And I think my activism stemmed from realizing that I'm not necessarily disabled because I have Dwardism.
[00:40:32] I'm disabled by design I'm disabled because the design standard exists that says that light switches must be five foot in the air. That's not the fault of my body, but because the person who designed it was designing it for themselves. So why can't we change it rather than changing people? And in many ways, the turning point for me personally came about when I was 11.
[00:40:55] I was offered limb lengthening surgery right before my growth spert. And what would happen is that my leg bones would be deliberately fractured. And over the course of a year, the bones would be spread apart so that in the gap new bone could grow. It would give me about six inches additional in height. But at 11, what I was most concerned about was that it actually might make other people like me more particularly the girls I went to school with, maybe it would make it easier to make friends because I would skew closer to society's abstract definition of normal.
[00:41:32] And at 11, I decided that if people didn't like me, because I was a little person that wasn't my fault, nor was it my problem. Now, if they didn't like me, because I was sassy, that was a different thing. But why did the world present opportunities or maybe even create a pressure for me to change who I was in order to fit in, in order to make everybody else more comfortable.
[00:42:00] So I remember being 11 and going into my parents and saying to them, I've decided what I'm going to do with the surgery. I'm not going to have it. I'm going to be me. And I think making that decision at 11 seemed so mundane at the time almost quotidian. That actually it has shaped the person on the professional that I have become ever since, because I have made the decision to be comfortable in my own skin and to realize that I'm not the person who needs to change, but I can actually be a vehicle for the world to change.
[00:42:32] To make it better for everyone. Because if we reduce the height of the light switch, that's not just going to help me, but it's going to help children. It's going to help people as they age, let's design a world where people can be safe to be themselves, whether that's the disabled community, the trans community, the queer community, there is an intersectionality in my approach to activism.
[00:42:54] To try to make the world a more equitable and accessible place. So I'm not sure if there was one moment, but I'm fortunate that I was gifted parents who taught me to fight for what's right.
[00:43:05] Krista Smith: I wonder how, how did your parents feel when you told them that you didn't want to have the surgery?
[00:43:11] Sinéad Burke: My dad as a little person had never been offered the surgery. Because in terms of the medical advancements, it wasn't really widely available in that era. So I think there was nothing to compare it to in that sense. I couldn't go to my dad for advice in the same way that I did as a child asking him about sneakers or clothes or kids making fun of me in the playground.
[00:43:35] So it was really the first time that I had to make a decision about being a little person all by myself. My parents told me that I had to make the decision that they couldn't make it for me, because this was something that I would have to live with. And it was something that I would have to accept or accept myself.
[00:43:56] And their response initially was really casual. They just said, great. We're really pleased that you have made this decision for you now. But you can change your mind. Don't feel like, because you've said no to the surgery today that you can wake up tomorrow and feel like you want it. These things ebb and flow, as do your emotions and your confidence.
[00:44:17] So give it time. And I'm really grateful to them because I'm not a parent, but if I was a parent, I don't know how comfortable I would be offering such a surgery to my child just in case they went with it. But again, that's not my choice to make for them. So, I think it was a real act of bravery.
[00:44:37] Krista Smith: And you talked a little bit about the outside world that, that there was bullying. I mean, you have this incredible nurturing environment inside the walls of your home, but outside, it had to have been challenging at times and very difficult.
[00:44:53] Sinéad Burke: Due to others, perceptions of people like me or the visibility of people like me in films and television and the media. We're rarely the protagonist and we're most often, historically at least the butt of the joke that shapes my everyday experience.
[00:45:12] When I leave the house, I hadn't experienced last year in Dublin, where I was just walking down the street, who is lunchtime two 16-year-old boys walked past me. And I thought nothing of it until one of them leapfrogged over me from behind jumped from the ground over my head to the other side. All the, while his friend recorded the entire incident on his phone, they were hoping to go viral on the internet.
[00:45:38] And I was so upset. I was upset because in that moment I wasn't a person, but an object. They didn't even think about what would have happened if he'd have missed. If he had kicked me in the head, what kind of injuries I'd have been left with? It didn't matter because they had concocted this plan where I was just
[00:45:57] an entity by which they could possibly be famous. And my response to that initially, was to engage the police. But I realized that if the police got in touch with them, all, what they would learn is to not get caught, not the human story about what actually happened in that moment and how it made me feel.
[00:46:20] So I went and visited every school in the area, high school, elementary school. And shared parts of my lived experience, using them as a case study to explore and to connect it to their lives. I know that those two boys were in one of the classrooms that I spoke to because I think stories, change hearts and minds.
[00:46:39] Krista Smith: Well, let's talk about your company that you form tilting the lens, right? So I, on the smallest level, what are you most proud of that you've been able to accomplish with your consultant work with your company and on the grand giant dream level? What do you hope to accomplish?
[00:46:58] Sinéad Burke: Gosh, Tilting The Lens is a consultancy company.
[00:47:03] It began because I had this. Appetite and pattern of asking why all the time, for example, why is there concrete steps outside of a museum? Why is the accessible entrance around the back or why doesn't want exist at all and began realizing that the status quo remains? Because often we don't ask why and asking why is great, but unless you're able to provide solutions, sometimes things don't change.
[00:47:33] So for me, what I'm proudest of. Is encouraging individuals, companies, and even governments to think about the idea that every issue is a disability issue. And that's true because we, as people are, we're only temporarily non-disabled because we might fall and be on crutches. Or as we age, we may have challenges with our hearing or our sight.
[00:47:57] How many people over 40 need to wear glasses. So by thinking through accessibility as a design opportunity, As a way in which to bring about creativity, innovation, longevity, sustainability, we are building a world where it is safe and beautiful and functional for everybody to be themselves. And the things that I'm proudest of are thinking about the notion that disability is by design.
[00:48:22] So how do we design not for disabled people, but with disabled people. And some of the best examples that I've been able to cultivate are in places like coffee shops, where we're redesigning, what a coffee shop might look like from an inclusive perspective in the very beginning, rather than something that's just tick box legal exercise at the end.
[00:48:43] So we've thought through the visibility of menus that when you're queuing for a coffee, if you're like me, a little person, your line of sight for the menu, it's going to be out of reach. But what about if English, isn't your first language? What about if braille is the tactile lexicon that you use. How do we make those spaces accessible, but creative for those people?
[00:49:08] But we're also thinking through things like wooden floors. If we put wooden floors, even in a place like a coffee shop, that's going to help deaf customers because all of a sudden, they're going to be able to feel the vibrations on the floor of the people who are moving around them and, in a pandemic,, something like that has never been more important when you can sense how close or how far people are from you.
[00:49:30] But it's been also brilliant to do things such as create employment, working with luxury fashion companies, to not just think about disability and accessibility is something that we have to do for our customers, because that makes our approach conditional, because maybe they'll come into our store.
[00:49:44] But what about if they worked there? What about that notion of, if you can see it, you can be it all of a sudden it gives us a mandate to look at retail design totally different way. Is there an elevator in the building? What does training look like? What does the recruitment process look like? And maybe those are the bigger projects.
[00:50:01] The smaller projects are just in helping people realize they haven't thought about this before. So tilting the lens as both as a starting point an accelerator and hopefully an agitator for change and creativity and innovation.
[00:50:19] Krista Smith: At the end of all my conversations, I always ask the same question regardless of who I'm talking to.
[00:50:27] And that question is, what advice do you have? For those who are struggling to make it and whatever that make it is, uh, as a designer, as an artist, as a musician, as an actor, just living in the world, get into the next day. W what advice would you give them?
[00:50:47] Sinéad Burke: I think it was about two years ago. I was coming out of a high school.
[00:50:51] I've been speaking to maybe a thousand students and I was just about to leave and a young girl who was about 15 ran out of. The whole after me kind of shedding my name, the teacher said, no, no, no, no, she's going leave her alone. Like go back in. And I said, Oh, is everything okay? And she said on the tough days, how do you keep going?
[00:51:12] And I just said, you know, there are some days that you breeze through that you get to 8:00 PM in the evening and you can't realize the time. And there are other moments in your life where you feel every second and don't think you'll get to the next one. And I said in those times. I just say. If I can get through yesterday, I can get through today.
[00:51:36] And if I can get to today, I can get to tomorrow. And sometimes if days seem too long of a period, I think about meal times, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But also, if I survive the last hour, I can do the next one to try to get yourself through those moments, with support and with help and with resources in order to keep going.
[00:52:01] I think when we talk about making it, and I realized the caliber of guests that you have had on your incredible show, sometimes making it, it's just getting to three o'clock and sometimes it's winning an award. I think we need skills for both of those times.
[00:52:17] Krista Smith: I couldn't agree more. So if people want to get in touch with you or, or help you in any way or find out more about what you're doing, how do they do that?
[00:52:28] Sinéad Burke: Well, thank you so much. I am readily available on the internet. I am @theSinéadBurke. Um, most social media platforms, but the company is Tilting The Lens. That's www dot tilting the lens.com. And whether you are an academic institution, a large corporate or a creative company, accessibility is everybody's concerned.
[00:52:50] It's going to give you greater audience share. It's going to give you greater profitability, but it's going to give you greater creativity because I've been hacking this world for 30 years. I already have the solutions that you probably haven't yet thought of, not out of maliciousness, but you just haven't had to the greater diversity that we can bring to the table where decisions are made and ideas are created, the better the world is going to be.
[00:53:19] Krista Smith: Sinéad thank you so much for being on the show and for educating us and inspiring us. I really thank you for your time and thank you for challenging us to look at things differently. So appreciate it. And so appreciate your work.
[00:53:35] Sinéad Burke: The honor is so mine. Thank you so much. And I hope our paths cross again soon.
[00:53:39] Krista Smith: Absolutely they will. Now, are you kidding? You don't even know me now. I found you. I'm never going to let you go.
[00:53:48] Sinéad Burke: Yes.
[00:53:54] Krista Smith: Thank you for listening in. That's our show. “Pieces Of A Woman” streams on Netflix starting January 7th. All the other films and series discussed today are streaming now. For more head over to Netflix queue.com. That's Netflix Q U E U E.com. And follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share.
[00:54:17] Listen in next time for “More Like This.”