TV Characters Who Have The Same Condition As The Actors Who Play Them

According to the CDC, approximately a fourth of all Americans have some condition or another that could be considered a disability. Despite this, disability remains extremely underrepresented on television: a GLAAD report on representation in TV notes that only 3.5% of characters in broadcast television shows during the 2020-2021 season had a disability — and that's the highest percentage GLAAD's annual reports have ever noted. Of this tiny fraction of TV characters, the majority are not played by actors with disabilities; a Ruderman Foundation study from 2016 found only 5% of TV characters with disabilities were played by actors with disabilities.

Fortunately, opportunities for actors with disabilities are increasing, and some of the best-loved characters on TV in recent years both have disabilities and are played by actors with the same condition as the characters. July is Disability Pride Month, so it feels particularly appropriate now to celebrate the following characters with disabilities and the actors with disabilities who play them. While there are aspects worth criticizing about several of the entries on this list, they have all, in their own way, broken ground for disabled representation.

One of the few characters in "Breaking Bad" who could reasonably be considered a "good person," Walter "Flynn" White Jr. is the son of schoolteacher-turned-meth kingpin Walter White Sr. At the start of the series, he loves his father almost as much as he loves a delicious breakfast. He even works to raise funds online for medical bills when he finds out about his dad's cancer diagnosis — a fund his dad secretly uses for money laundering. He's understandably extremely shaken when he finds out the truth about Walt Sr.'s crimes, and by the series finale, he's officially changed his name to his nickname, Flynn, to distance himself from his father.

Walter Jr./Flynn has cerebral palsy, uses crutches, and has speech difficulties. Actor RJ Mitte also has cerebral palsy, but his symptoms are milder. He explained in an AMC Q&A that he had to regress in his speech and physical therapy in order to portray the character: "I had to stay up real late so I could learn to blur my speech more. I had to learn how to use crutches so it didn't look like I'm faking walking. I didn't want to look like just another faker because I really have it." Mitte won the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award in 2013 for his performance and contribution to disability representation.

Connie, a deaf member of Magna's band of roaming survivors, was first introduced following the time skip in "The Walking Dead" Season 9 episode "What Comes After." She was part of the recurring cast through the rest of Season 9 and was promoted to a series regular in Seasons 10 and 11, the final two seasons of the AMC series. She always keeps a watchful eye on her surroundings, and her ability to communicate silently via American Sign Language proves advantageous in avoiding attention from walkers.

Like her character, actress Lauren Ridloff is deaf in real life. Her career has been booming — in 2018, the same year she made her "Walking Dead" debut, Ridloff was nominated for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play at the Tonys for her role as Sarah Norman in a revival of "Children of a Lesser God." She's since appeared in the Oscar-winning drama "Sound of Metal" and played Makkari, the MCU's first deaf superhero, in "Eternals."

Improving representation of people with disabilities in the media means introducing a wide variety of characters with disabilities, including characters who aren't necessarily likable. Isaac Goodwin, introduced in Season 2 of Netflix's "Sex Education," is a good example of an authentically portrayed character with a disability who can also be kind of a jerk. He lies about the source of his quadriplegia, and in the Season 2 finale, he deleted Otis' voice message apologizing and confessing his love to Maeve. He later claims he did this to protect her from Otis, but for many viewers, it came across as him eliminating the competition and manipulating her into a relationship.

Even if fans hated Isaac and Maeve's relationship, however, its depiction was in many ways groundbreaking for the way it was able to destigmatize the sexuality of wheelchair users. The character was already intended to be disabled, but the writers chose not to decide on the character's specific disability until they cast actor George Robinson, who became quadriplegic after a rugby injury at age 17 (via Cherwell).

Maya Lopez, a Native American villain-turned-superhero who goes by the name "Echo," is one of the most prominent deaf characters in the Marvel Comics universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character, introduced in the "Hawkeye" Disney+ series and played by first-time actress Alaqua Cox, is also an amputee with a prosthetic leg. Initially introduced as the leader of the Tracksuit Mafia (she leaves the group after learning its leader/her adoptive uncle Kingpin killed her father), Echo makes for an intimidating yet sympathetic antagonist.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cox wasn't even considering an acting career until friends sent her Marvel's casting call seeking deaf Native American women for a role. It wasn't until halfway through filming "Hawkeye" that she found out that Echo would be getting her own Disney+ series. Cox described finding this out as "wild," and celebrated the increase in authentic representation in film and television, saying, "It will make kids with all types of cultures and disabilities feel like our dreams can break free from limitations." The "Echo" series will further develop the conflict between Echo and Kingpin, whom she was last seen shooting.

Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach played by Jane Lynch in "Glee," is a bully to basically everyone, but she has a soft spot for Becky Jackson, a student with Down syndrome played by Lauren Potter. It turns out Sue's sympathy for Becky is connected to her own family life, since her sister Jean (Robin Trocki) also has Down syndrome and lives in a residential care facility. Jean dies at the end of the show's second season.

While "Glee" cast both of its characters with Down syndrome authentically, the Ryan Murphy series was controversial in the disability community due to casting able-bodied actor Kevin McHale as the wheelchair-using character Artie Abrams (via AP). The way the writers handled Becky was also criticized, particularly the decision to make her responsible for the school shooting scare in the Season 4 episode "Shooting Star." Nonetheless, Potter was able to use the success of "Glee" to further advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, even serving on President Obama's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Prime Video's "As We See It," created by Jason Katims, is an American remake of the Israeli TV series "On the Spectrum." "On the Spectrum" cast neurotypical actors to play its autistic lead characters, as did Katims' previous series "Parenthood," but "As We See It" made sure to cast autistic actors for its leads. The show centers on three roommates in a group home: socially awkward computer programmer Jack Hoffman (Rick Glassman), agoraphobic Harrison Dietrich (Albert Rutecki), and romantically ambitious Violet Wu (Sue Ann Pien).

Reviews for the first season were widely positive, with the neurodiverse actors receiving praise for their performances. Some autistic critics, however, were more negative about the show's writing, arguing that the characterization fell into stereotypes and that the show didn't do enough to directly challenge the harmful attitudes of its neurotypical characters. While authentic casting is commendable, it does not make a show's portrayal of disability immune to criticism, especially when most of the writers don't have the disability they're writing about.