Aimee Mullins - athlete, actor and model HARDtalk


Aimee Mullins - athlete, actor and model

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Edinburgh and the Duchess of Cambridge. -- Leicester.

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Now it is time for HARDtalk. HARDtalk is in New York City, and

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my guess today is a woman who has spent her life challenging the

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assumptions that go with their labelled "physically disabled".

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Aimee Mullins had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she

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was just one-year-old. She went on to become a champion athlete, an

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actor and a highly-paid model. She has been feted as an inspiration

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across America. But what is the real lesson of the remarkable story

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Aimee Mullins, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. It is fair to say that

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you made your name as an athlete, an athlete who starred in the

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Paralympics and broke world records. I just wonder, in a way, do you

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feel that athletics is weighed you could be the very best? No, not at

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all. It is one of the areas where I felt I could be the very best. I

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think my resistance to being put in a box and been tied up with a bow

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has really been the one defining thing of my life and my career. I

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thought it would be unlikely that sports would be the first place I

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would make my name. Acting is really what I knew I wanted to do,

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from my earliest memories. I was even recalling this morning,

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because it is the bicentennial of dickens birthday, that by first

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played on stage was Oliver Twist. - - Dickens' birthday. The joy and

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the brush of that, it is the same thing as if you are walking into a

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stadium, when you walk on to a stage to do a monologue. When you

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are telling a story in front of 300 or 3,000 people. But here is what

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strikes me about everything you have just described, way you get

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your satisfactions from. Whether you get your satisfaction from the

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stadium or the theatre or whatever, all of those are intensely exposed

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places. And we have to begin by discussing the fact that from the

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age of one, you were a double amputee. And yet you never shied

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away from those physically exposing places. No, I have never shied away

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from anything with that. I think I was a born storyteller. I realised

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in the last fears that that is the common thread that links together

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all of the things I have done. -- in the last few years. Whether it

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is from sports, to really use in my body as a coat hanger in the

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fashion world, to provoking conversations about beauty and the

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human body and looking at advanced prostatic design, to the kind of

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ancient art form of doing theatre. Storytelling has always been at the

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heart of that. It is something I am comfortable doing and sovereign

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alight doing. And it is being very private in a very public way.

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you were growing up, and getting used to the idea that you have

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particular challenges to face, because of what happened to you,

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and what happened to your body and your legs, did you never, as a

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youngster, want to avoid being watched by hundreds of people?

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Being under the gaze of a wide audience? I think there was a

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distinction in my mind between being stared out when the focus was

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my legs - but that certainly gave me some uncomfortable moments as a

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child. You know the difference between an audience, whether it is

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on the supermarket or on the beach, staring at you with a sense of

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penetration read and fear. Did you remember that? Absolutely. I think

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people are afraid of what they don't understand. The opportunity

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to perform in a public way can engage conversation. I guess your

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parents must have been aware of that, to? On the beach with you, or

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in the supermarket, they must have seen people staring at you. But

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when they were talking to you about all of this, did they ever say to

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you, you know what, Aimee, you may want to take choices in life which

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leave you less exposed? Or did they encourage you to be out there, to

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be up in people's faces about who you were? We didn't talk about it.

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My parents had be the issues on their plate, like paying the

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mortgage and working two jobs. They were more worried about that and

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how secure my psyche was as a child. It was, sort of, get on with it.

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Stick up for yourself, defend yourself. This is the reality of

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the world. People are going to stare at you so deal with it.

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have looked back at your record, and you were successful athlete,

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but it seems to me that you were doing two different things. On one

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level you were trying to compete against able-bodied athletes, in

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running and jumping and all that sort of stuff, and at the same time

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you were becoming a leading member of the American Paralympic team.

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And I just wonder, which meant more to you? Trying to compete - you

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were competing - against the able bodied, or developing that Korea in

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the Paralympic team? -- career. never saw them as separate. I had

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never met a PoW Olympic athlete. The internet didn't cheat in until

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1995 or so. So the idea that you could sit down, like you can today,

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and tie-pin and beauty and have thousands of images to inform

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yourself. -- type in the air beauty. I remember being in second grade,

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and my godmother called. Turn on the TV, there was a genius on who

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had her arm amputated, -- gymnast. And she was doing amazing flips and

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cartwheels. You had to write into the shower and hope that the show

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would pass along your letter to the person. We are talking, six months,

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perhaps. That is how you found out about other people and new

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technology in prosthetics. The insurance situation in the United

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States means that a lot of the new technology being created in

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prosthetics was not going to be covered any time soon. So the

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prosthetics companies did not have any motivation to get to know about

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new things. You develop, along with designers, what I suppose was the

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prototype of the blade that we now know it with from other but - like

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athletes. Did you see the fitting of the blaze at your legs as a way

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that you could actually compete on a playing field with the able

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bodied? I competed on the playing field with athletes who did not use

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prosthetics my whole life. I was on the state championship softball

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team for five years, I was a swimmer, you name the sport, I

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played it. And I remember thinking, I should not tell anybody that my

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legs are wooden, because I do not have freezing cold feet to worry

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about going down the slopes. I was always looking at the perspective

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of how I could possibly use everything I had for the advantages

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it might hold. When you slide into second place and you have wooden

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legs, and that girl knows what is coming at her, she usually gets out

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of the weight. I had the stolen bases record one year in my

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softball League. This is interesting, because this is

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exactly what the eye to it is right now with other power the big

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athletes. The discussion is whether in some respects the technology

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gives the power Libyan an unfair advantage. -- para Libyan. --

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Paralympian. The advantage, these days, lies with the people with

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prosthetics. It does not at the moment but it will in the future.

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But I want to talk about the level playing field. We do not worry

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about it when a short guy is up against Usain Bolt. We do not worry

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about it when somebody comes to the Olympics from a poor country

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without the resources for the best training and coaches and hyperbaric

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chambers to train in. Those differences, in the end, are

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differences about the way in which what God gave us in terms of the

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human body... Say it is about training versus prosthetics. I

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think materials are materials. I think we have to ask ourselves, as

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a society, why we are OK with a sport developing in every other way.

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Cycling, golf, whatever. They do not use the same materials they did

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50 years ago. We have pictures and golfers having stuff implanted into

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bad joints towards nature has told about that time is up. We do not

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mind if Tiger Woods has laser surgery to better his vision beyond

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what nature would have allowed. This is something that happens or

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cross sport. Specifically with regard to Oscar, it was ruled upon

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four years ago by the governing body. There is no definitive signs,

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the purity and sides, that point to any net advantage. There is a lot

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you can go into with respect to, say, hips swing versus what is on

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the ground. But at the end of the day, name me one a Olympian who has

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voluntary amputated that makes for this so-called advantage. None.

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warned they knew one Paralympic a Olympian. Tony Thompson in the UK.

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She is concerned that if athletes like Oscar end up competing in the

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Olympics as well as the Paralympics, it will devalue the parapets. It

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will end up looking like a second- class event or a second class prize.

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Can you see where she is coming from with that concern? I respect

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her as an athlete but I really disagree with her on this point.

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First of all, it has happened already. A lot of people have been

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in the Paralympics and the other bits. In fact, Great Britain has a

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cyclist who made very well compete in both the Paralympics and the

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Olympics next summer. There is a swimmer from South America with an

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amputated leg he swam in both the Paralympics and the Olympics. It

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has happened already and it certainly has not diminished the

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value and the excitement of the power the big games thus far. It

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will only continue, I think, to raise the awareness of the

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Paralympic Games and to encourage more and more people to think of

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how they can test themselves against the best athlete in the

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world, period. That is gender, that his race, and that is whether or

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not you run with some kind of assisted medical device that you

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When you look at the last Olympics that Beijing and the way that the

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US media covered the Paralympics use. NBC, who had had 2000 staff

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covering the Beijing Olympics reduce their staff for the

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Paralympics to a handful - four or five people. Do you think it will

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be different this time around? Do you think the American people

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really care about Paralympics? teenager when I competed in the

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Paralympics, I had never even heard of it. The internet has done so

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much to advance that. It has only been in the last five or six years

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that the Paralympics committee is housed alongside the Olympics

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Committee in the US. Many people around the world see the

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Paralympics as, and I am putting this in quotes, the disabled games.

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You have always spoken out with a great deal of passion about your

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disdain for this word, disabled. Tried to explain to me why it

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matters to you that people with all sorts of different physical issues

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are and not put into these collective definition of, disabled.

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I have an issue with the laziness of people who use that word. People

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who had glasses 60 years ago would have been considered disabled.

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Today, the prospect of I glasses or contact lenses is so omnipresent

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that we no longer think of it as a disability. The average age of

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Americans - we are the largest segment of the American population

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over the age of 65. Hit replacements, and knee replacements

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- all of the things are becoming commonplace. It is one thing to

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apply the word disabled to a car which has broken down. One thing to

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apply that to a child with their entire life ahead of them. We

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automatically assumed they are Ltd just because their bodies or mines

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operate in a different way. I grant you is complicated, but isn't it

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important to give as powerful a voice as possible to those who have

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different forms of physical impairment - sight, hearing,

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mobility, whatever. By talking about the disabled and disabilities,

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in politics for example, it gives that particular group of people a

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collective voice and may be a collective power that otherwise

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they would not have. First of all, I have never been a representative

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of a group that is so diverse. I have no idea what it is like to

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have a visual or a hearing impairment or to have one flesh and

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bone leg, for that matter. What I know is my experience. I think we

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should refer to people as the individuals they are. Take your

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work as a model. A very narrow as that it is imposed on people in

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that business. Why do you want to take that on? I thought that

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modelling and fashion at baptising was a great arena to have a

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conversation about a social issue that usually has such heavy

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overtones that it does not engage as many people in the conversation

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as should be engaged. It demands of, particularly the women, inside it,

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a look. The models we see around us across the world tend to be tall,

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slim, flawless in their features. That is why people look at that

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industry and think that it creates a false impression of the way

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people up. It probably does, but it is not meant to reflect the way

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people are. It is meant to be fantastical. It is meant to reflect

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in many cases one designer's crazy dream about what they see fall, for

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instance, spring 2012. I think about the quote from Gandhi: You

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must be the changed you wish to see in the world. Why not change the

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conversation? Why not get myself involved in the conversation? I

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have been lucky enough to do that. You talk about it as a conversation

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as if you have the power to influence the people that you work

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with. But do you? You say it is important to cultivate over the

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body image. Their bodies that people see in advertising do not

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actually cultivate a healthy body image at all. This is where I am

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probably at an advantage because I never saw myself represented in

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fashion advertising, or indeed in any advertising. I was never

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besieged by those images as an idea of what I should be. I was in power

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were because of the lack of those images. I could create my own id of

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what beautiful could be. One so started having a public profile in

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the mid-nineties people came up to me and said, you are a beautiful

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girl. You do not look disabled. Interesting, because I do not feel

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disabled. On that was the first time I realise that people were

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admitting something to me about the us verses them paradigm. You do not

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feel like one of them. You feel like one of ours. And of course,

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you are one of us. Do you think the industry has become more open to

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different body shapes, looks, types of people? Yes, it is celebrating a

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broader range and diversity of people who are beautiful and

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radiate something attractive. People did not remember they have a

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lot more power in this argument than they think they do. If you do

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not like the kind of advertising a company gives you, do not buy their

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products. We have talked about some of these stereotypes which have

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greeted you when you went for a job or when people commented on your

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not looking disabled etcetera. Is that true of your acting career?

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Easy difficult for you to get the parts which do not involve having

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artificial legs, for instance? You may find yourself playing parts

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which have nothing to do with your own particular back story? It is

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another business which is hugely marked by categories. Stereotypes

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of certain categories. You have to be in the game long enough - it is

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their last man standing kind of game - way your talents speaks for

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itself. That may happen for me. Yesterday I read for a journalist

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and at a CIA operative, none of whom had any prosthetic parts. My

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first twirls Any Hercule Poirot episode. -- my first part was in an

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episode of Hercule Poirot. Even as you tell me these stories, at the

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end I want to come back to the beginning - your basic motivation.

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When casting people of the year end its roles as a landmine victim, it

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seems like sometimes you might say, I do not want to be in this

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business. But I have to change this industry, that is what I think. I

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have an opportunity. Other actors are also contributing to this

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