Following the annual Celebration of Leadership Assembly, the Academy Life Editorial Board met with RJ Mitte to discuss his experience with cerebral palsy, and career as an actor, philanthropist, and celebrity face of the #CutTheBull campaign to end bullying and provide support for children with disabilities. A condensed version of the interview lightly edited for clarity and grammar appears below. Photos by Chris Heermann’18
On Representing the Disabled Community:
It is a very serious position, but I’m one of millions. I’m just one that has been able to be more prevalent in what I’m doing and where I’m going and in my voice. It is a very serious role, but I think we have too many people taking it too seriously.
When you force your point, do you actually think they listen?
No, they don’t listen. When you’re literally yelling at someone to try to get them to understand, you’re losing that fight because it just makes them want to retreat from it. It repels people. I try to talk “with,” not “at.”
In the media, we have a tendency to victimize disability — always — even when we are talking positively about it, we’re still victimizing it. It’s kind of sad because there’s still this tone of sorrow, of what “he had to overcome.” People view disability as weakness, as an illness, as something that we have to cure and fix and overcome. Yes, we do have to do some of those things, but the thing is, it’s not a weakness. It’s not something that we should want to get rid of. It’s something that we should want to understand.
On being aware of your differences:
In school was one of the main times I was made aware because people saw the braces. I mean, if you saw me walking, you wouldn’t think that I had anything wrong with me. And I don’t! What am I saying? I know that there isn’t anything wrong with me.
I don’t think about my disability. I don’t think about it unless I have to talk about it.
School was one of those places that made me aware because people didn’t understand it, especially at the time. They didn’t see kids with braces. I think, now more than ever, we have more of an awareness of what we are as humans, especially those with disabilities. But, you know, when people don’t understand people, either they repel and attack what they don’t know, or they try to understand and include. We definitely have two types of people in this world: people that will attack you and people that will include you.
On finding your path:
I didn’t want to be an actor. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Marine. Acting was something that kind of fell upon me. You know, I still don’t know what I want to do. I’m 24 years old, and I couldn’t tell you what I want to do tomorrow! But the thing is, I just go day by day and try to find my path. The main thing is never stop learning. Never stop growing.
Click here to read more about RJ Mitte’s partnership with Shriners Hospitals for Children.
On Activism:
My grandparents set up a foundation back in 1992, the Roy Frank & Joann Mitte Foundation. They set up this foundation, and we focused on elderly care, education, and disability services. I was always going to be part of a foundation.
I’m lucky enough that I have a message that apparently people want to hear. Because of my disability, I had people interested in doing advocacy work and talking with me. When I started speaking and I started doing all this stuff in the entertainment industry, I was getting offers to go talk at Capitol Hill. This winter I got an offer to speak at the Geneva Convention, and in a few weeks I’m speaking in Russia about diversity in the arts and film. You don’t really know if you have that message.
We all have our own entities inside us that people want to know and people want to care about, but you don’t necessarily perceive it as that because you’re in it. You reach people, and that affects lives. That’s something that we forget.
We have a tendency to become compliant and complacent and stagnant. Stepping out of our comfort zone can be something scary. At the end of the day, you have to step out of the realm of comfort to have true impact.
Mitte shares his experience following 2016 Celebration of Leadership assembly
On seeing you change you create:
It’s hard to see the work. It’s hard to see that you affected change, but I feel like I have an effect. I feel like I’ve had an impact in ways that I don’t need to know. I don’t really care about that validation. As long as they keep bringing me back to do these talks, as long as they keep encouraging me to do this. When I try to stop speaking, something happens.
I’ll give you an example: I was in the car with this man, and his daughter, who had cerebral palsy. And literally, at the time I was like, I don’t want to speak anymore. This is pointless. I think I’m going to quit, I don’t think I need to do this. And I get into this car—and it’s a four hour drive to where I was going—and I had to hear about the impact that I had on him and the impact I had on how he viewed his daughter. And literally for four hours, in the back of my mind I’m thinking Oh my God, I want to quit! And this guy is literally saying the reason why I shouldn’t quit, without even knowing that I was thinking about stopping. This has happened multiple times.
You can only hope that you do make an effect, and that you will change people for the better and not for the worse, but you just don’t know. You can only hope, and you just give it your all.
I try to tell a story. I try to make people laugh. I try to be informative and just change a mindset. For me, that’s what’s really important: changing a mindset.
The Editorial Board: Caroline Anders, Raymond Cao, Chiru Gunawardena, Abigail Jeffers, Camila Jones, Jane Li, Sid Menon, Tristan Rhee, Georgia Tuckerman, Sarah Wexner, Michael Zhang
