British actor and filmmaker Adam Morse used to keep his blindness secret, fearful of the reaction he would get when pitching for projects.
Years later, having starred in television series See, and directed feature film Lucid and an NFL Super Bowl commercial for a Google phone feature, he hopes to be an example for others living with disabilities.
“The more that I can blaze a trail for others, the next generation of artists ... who are living with disabilities or blindness that want to be in the film industry ... it gives them permission to say: ‘Hey, well, don’t question whether it’s possible or not because look at this guy,’” Morse told reporters this week during Blindness Awareness Month.
Photo: screengrab from www.reuters.com
“I never had that. And that was one of the hardest things to battle against ... not being able to point out to someone else in the past that had done the things I wanted to do, to let people know it was OK or possible,” Morse added.
Morse, also a writer and producer, lost most of his eyesight in 2009 aged 19, when he was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a mitochondrial disease.
When he made Lucid, very few people involved knew about his blindness.
Actor “Billy Zane was one of the people ... who laid it on really thick and kind of put some much needed pressure on me to come out and be honest about who I was and my condition,” Morse said.
Morse said that his working methods only have small differences to other directors, such as using a larger monitor to make the most of the partial peripheral sight he has.
“Details might be lost on me on the day. That’s fine, because ... all of those decisions on the details that’ll be on the screen, they’re decided beforehand,” he said.
A video of Morse on set making the Super Bowl ad, which follows a blind man through relationship milestones, was released online.
“The impact that that behind the scenes video had on people, it is even greater” than the ad, he said. “Now that I’m finally ... open about how I work ... I can invite cameras to follow that process really closely in making my next feature film.”
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000