Paul Raci Quotes

Paul Raci

Profession : Actor

Birth : April 7, 1948

When my mother took me to the movies in 1956 to see 'Love Me Tender' with Elvis Presley, what I didn't realize is I'd have to interpret that whole movie for her while I was sitting there. There was no captioning, no accessibility for deaf people for pop culture.

Paul Raci

So that is a shift I've seen from growing up: watching my parents feel oppressed by the hearing man, to now deaf people being empowered with their own identity. That's very refreshing.

Paul Raci

When I graduated from the University of Illinois, I sat down with my acting teacher, Bill Raffeld. I go, 'Bill, what's next for me?' I'm all excited. And he says, 'Paul, I don't think you're going to have any success until you're much older.' I said, 'Nobody wants to hear that! What are you talking about?'

Paul Raci

I was the go-between when my father needed to negotiate a contract whether it be our mortgage or my mother dealing with the gas company. I'm a little kid, less than seven years old, negotiating between the hearing man and my deaf parents.

Paul Raci

My mother and father put down some earnest money on a house on the north side of Chicago. I don't remember the details, but it got all messed up and we had to go back to that house and get that money back. I had to do that negotiation... It's not a situation that children should be put into.

Paul Raci

We all know in the deaf community, there are deaf actors, men and women who are highly, highly skilled, highly intuitive, highly intelligent, that are not given a chance for many reasons.

Paul Raci

What I'm going to make sure happens, if I have anything to say about it, now that people are listening - we need to see more protagonists that just happen to be deaf. There are great actors out there. If you're going to have a deaf character, then it should be authentically portrayed with a deaf actor.

Paul Raci

American Sign Language is my native tongue. That's the first thing that I learned to communicate with.

Paul Raci

I learned English second, as a secondary language.

Paul Raci

You're going to see more inclusion in casting in this town, in Hollywood. You're going to see a lot more differently abled people, people that use wheelchairs, blind, deaf, there's going to be a lot more of those kind of protagonists. And you're going to watch those journeys unfold on the screen.

Paul Raci

There's plenty of deaf actors, tons of them that are talented, that deserve to work.

Paul Raci

I went into Vietnam as a young man like John Wayne, because that's what my grandfather told me to do. But after my four year experience in the war, I came out as Lenny Bruce.

Paul Raci

John Williams was a Vietnam veteran and I'm a Vietnam veteran, I did two tours in Vietnam. So knowing that, that he wrote a coming of age story about a young man in 1860... and what he goes through in that journey is exactly what my journey was in Vietnam.

Paul Raci

My father was deafened at the age of six months from spinal meningitis, so he never knew sound at all.

Paul Raci

When The Beatles came out, my mother bought me my first concert ticket.

Paul Raci

Most of the deaf people I know are proud to be deaf, and whole and complete.

Paul Raci

You throw all these obstacles in front of people, especially a lot of the deaf people that I've known in my life, you throw an obstacle in front of them and they brush it away and just keep on moving.

Paul Raci

I'm a Coda, a child of deaf adults. I belong to an international organisation. There's Codas all over the world.

Paul Raci

Growing up in the 50s, there was no wheelchair access to sidewalks ramps, there was nothing like that. Nobody thought about that - that slowly changed.

Paul Raci

This is why every actor wants to get a script - they want to see what the arc of the character is.

Paul Raci