By Marie-Louise Gumuchian
LONDON (Reuters) – 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”, directed feature film “Lucid” and a 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 Reuters this week during Blindness Awareness Month.
“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, also a writer and producer, lost most of his eyesight in 2009 aged 19, when he was diagnosed with the mitochondrial disease Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy.
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,” he said.
Morse says 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.”
(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Alison Williams)