Ring of truth in ‘Sound of Metal’
DEAF ACTORS CHELSEA LEE, JEREMY LEE STONE DREW ON THEIR EXPERIENCES TO BRING AUTHENTICITY TO THE FILM ABOUT A MUSICIAN LOSING HIS HEARING.
ON THE SET of “Sound of Metal,” actor and American Sign Language coach Jeremy Lee Stone instructed costar Riz Ahmed to stop using his voice.” Instead, Ahmed did something strange.
Rather than copy-signing Stone — or reflecting the sign back to his ASL teacher as expected — Ahmed looked away, nodded and with his voice said, “OK,” forcing Stone to repeat himself by twisting his hand and fingers in front of his neck.
The command, which means “turn your voice off,” is a common call-and-response sign used when teaching ASL. And after training extensively with Stone, Ahmed knew better than to ignore it. Stone was perplexed and frustrated by the actor’s behavior.
“I was really shocked by that,” Stone says during a recent Zoom interview. “I’ve taught him for seven months. Why is he not doing this?”
The cameras were rolling during the brief, improvised exchange between Ahmed and Stone, who agreed to appear in the film as an ASL teacher after director Darius Marder insisted on using his talents on- and off-screen. Stone is one of multiple Deaf artists who offered perspectives during production to ensure that the film’s Deaf community was represented authentically.
“Later on, Riz comes over to me, and he said, ‘I just felt like I had to refuse you in that moment because I’m not comfortable. I wasn’t ready to turn off my voice,’ ” Stone says. “And in that moment ... I’m understanding that this is an acting choice that Riz was making. It absolutely parallels real experiences that I have with teaching ASL. People aren’t comfortable. They feel strange. It’s a struggle — hard to get in their bodies and to understand. And then it becomes easier.”
What was an out-of-character moment for Ahmed, who had immersed himself in Deaf culture for his latest star turn, made sense for Ahmed’s character, Ruben, a heavymetal drummer who loses his hearing in the Amazon drama.
As Ruben’s hearing rapidly deteriorates, he reluctantly joins a Deaf community — a diverse ensemble of characters mostly played by Deaf actors, with the exception of Ahmed and Paul Raci, a child of Deaf adults who portrays Joe, the leader of the community.
“I’m so happy to see how this film really represents part of the Deaf community, as well as part of hearing loss and that community and the journey through that,” Stone says while Zooming from Pasadena.
“I was amazed at how often I got to see Deaf actors. There were a solid amount of Deaf actors in this film. That is so rare . ... The last time I saw a project that included — man, I’m trying to think ...”
He trailed off, unable to come up with a single example. “Hopefully the expectation will be more [representation],” he adds. “And not just Deaf, but Deaf-Blind, diverse BIPOC members of the community, LGBTQ. To see that represented on-screen was just so powerful.”
One of the most prominent Deaf characters in the film is Jenn, a recovering addict and Ruben’s best friend in the community, played by Chelsea Lee. Her casting, as Lee describes it, was “kismet” — both because of her resemblance to the character and because she just happened to live in Boston at the time auditions were held in the city.
“[Marder] had a version of Jenn that actually sort of just went along the lines of who I am,” Lee says via Zoom from Denver. “I’m Deaf. I’m queer. I grew up in a Deaf community . ... But the biggest difference was that I had never experienced addiction. I think addiction itself is an identity for folks, and we all have so many identities within our intersectional selves. And for me, as a Deaf person, I have experienced rejection, and I have experienced marginalization . ... So I imagined that somebody who experienced life as an addict would probably feel those marginalizations.”
While preparing for her bigscreen debut, Lee met with Marder to develop a backstory for her character. They determined that Jenn grew up feeling isolated from her hearing family before the events of the film. In “Sound of Metal,” Ruben fills a void left by Jenn’s estranged brother. “She felt as though the experience of losing the relationship with her brother really sort of [led to her becoming] codependent on Ruben,” Lee says. “She would do anything for Ruben.”
Jenn’s past trauma is never fully unpacked in the film, but it does inform a pivotal scene in which Lee’s character is hesitant to help Ruben sell his music gear to raise money for cochlear implant surgery, which he hopes will restore his hearing.
“I think that goes back to Jenn’s backstory — not trusting hearing folks,” Lee says. “At the time, Ruben was still a hearing guy [on the inside] . ... Is he trustworthy? Is he going to take advantage of me? And then also wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, because Jenn really cares about Ruben.”
Lee says the profound relationship Jenn forges with Ruben was reflected off-screen in her close bond with Ahmed, who connected with his scene partner “as a person, not just as an actor,” and would sometimes ask her for sign language advice. At one point, the pair even created an original sign for a scene that didn’t end up making the final cut.
Both Ahmed and Marder welcomed feedback from the film’s Deaf cast — especially from Stone, who was recruited as an ASL coach but ended up becoming much more involved as a consultant. Often, Marder would allow Stone to completely take over for him on set, to the point where the filmmaker’s own crew approached him and asked, in earnest, if he was comfortable with Stone leading the production.
“It’s immeasurable, the effect that Jeremy had on this movie,” Marder says via Zoom. “I leaned on him for a lot, and then I realized when I was shooting, I wanted a Deaf director with me . ... I wanted the
Deaf community to represent themselves in this film. I didn’t want to be representing that culture myself, of course, because how can I?”
Stone, who last month signed with M88, a new agency that represents Michael B. Jordan and aims to diversify Hollywood, felt compelled to step in whenever a sequence rang false. When characters communicating via ASL were staged too close together, Stone made sure they were given space to sign without colliding. When Deaf actors were directed to appear shocked as another person entered the frame, Stone explained that Deaf people typically stand at an angle “so that we can see if people are coming and going.”
And while shooting a scene in which Ruben watches a video of his girlfriend singing on Joe’s computer, Stone informed Marder that Deaf people tend to keep their electronics on mute. In the movie, the clip is played without sound.
“I’m trying to think of another example where Jeremy ... really called me out on something,” Marder says. “They happened every day . ... I really asked for it.”
By the time production began, Ahmed had become so skilled in ASL that Stone had to remind him that his character was not supposed to be fluent. While filming Ruben’s first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, for example, Stone noticed Ahmed focusing intently on his fellow performers as they signed their introductions. He pulled Ahmed aside to point out that Ruben would have no idea how to process sign language on his first day.
“It allowed me the responsibility to convey more about the Deaf community, to make sure ... that the culture was represented appropriately,” Stone says of working with Marder and Ahmed.
“I felt very comfortable having that discussion with them to make sure we stayed on the right track.”
Some of the most authentic set pieces in the film, according to Stone and Lee, were the dinner scenes in which the AA group members share food, conversation and laughter at a round table. The circular shape of the table was key, as the actors needed direct lines of sight to each other to communicate — which they did by enthusiastically signing every which way and thumping on the table to alert others when they had something to say.
Watching the supper sequences back, Lee was reminded of her own family members, who were often seen as loud and “animalistic” by hearing patrons when sharing meals in public. “[T]o experience this rejection and [feel] like we had to hide our identity because folks didn’t know that that was the norm for Deaf folks, was really intriguing,” Lee says. “To see it on-screen [is] to understand that Deaf people have a culture. Deaf people have a language, and we are not animals . ... We have this beautiful language through which we communicate, and it was just seen as a normal conversation [in the film].”
Asked what came up in normal conversation, Lee couldn’t help but grin as she recalled one particularly candid dinner-table discussion about someone who forgot to flush the toilet earlier that day. (In the movie, the unscripted dining scenes are not subtitled for hearing audiences until Ruben can comprehend ASL.) “We’re very descriptive,” Lee says. “You can imagine, like, ‘Who left the one that looks like the poopemoji swirl? Who left the one that looks like they had lasagna for dinner?’ It was pretty funny.”
With the critical success of “Sound of Metal,” Lee and Stone are hopeful that more opportunities will arise for Deaf and other marginalized creatives in the entertainment industry — both behind and in front of the camera. With an Indie Spirit and SAG Award-nominated project on her resume, Lee expresses a desire to continue her acting career — as does Stone, who also wants to direct his own projects with the goal of blazing a trail for Deaf talent while breaking down “barriers between the Deaf community and the entertainment industry.”
“If a script writes a Deaf character, and there’s a hearing person that’s cast in that role ... it’s a strange situation, because now this hearing person is deciding, ‘OK, I’ll take this role, and now I’ll learn American Sign Language,’ ” Stone says.
“But why not just simplify it and hire a Deaf actor? You don’t have to go through that whole expense and the process of learning a language. That just boggles my mind.” (He later adds that Ahmed’s casting worked for “Sound of Metal,” namely because Ruben was not written as a Deaf character.)
As the rallying cry “Nothing about us without us” continues to gain traction in representation discourse, Lee and Stone believe “Sound of Metal” is a testament to the power of listening to the people off-screen whose stories are being told on-screen.
“When we had finished filming, and everybody said cut, I burst into tears,” Lee says. “It’s rare to have this kind of experience where your lived experience is so welcomed ... and that is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life.”
WHEN DUA LIPA was15 years old, she left her parents and two younger siblings behind in the family’s native Kosovo and moved more or less on her own to London. The plan, at least as understood by her mom and dad (who’d only agreed to it because she’d be rooming with the older daughter of a family friend), was to finish high school and then enter university. By the time Lipa graduated, though, she’d turned her focus to music, posting covers online and recording hooky originals she co-wrote while supporting herself as a hostess at a Mexican joint in London’s Soho neighborhood.
“I kept telling my parents, if I take a gap year, then I don’t have to pay off my university debt,” the singer says today with a laugh.
Asked how long she was willing to stretch that gap year — how long she was prepared to grind in the hopes of becoming a pop star — she smiles as though amused by the misconception that she’d been struggling.
“That was a great life — I was working in a restaurant, I was partying all
night, then I’d wake up in the morning and go to the studio,” she says. “I had so much fun.”
But also: A struggle suggests she might have accepted anything less than success.
“I’ve always been persistent, and I’ve always fought for the things that I’ve wanted,” Lipa, now 25, says in her crisp English accent. “So as much as this was my passion, I feel like it was also my destiny.”
A decade after she set out from home, it’s tempting to think she was right. Last year, Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” — a sophomore LP full of sticky vocal melodies, shimmering guitar licks and crazy-funky bass lines — topped the U.K. album chart and was certified gold in the U.S. “Don’t Start Now,” the project’s disco-throwback lead single, has been streamed nearly 2 billion times on Spotify and YouTube.
In November, more than 5 million people tuned into an elaborate, Studio 54-inspired livestream that featured cameos by Elton John, Bad Bunny and Kylie Minogue, the last of whom praised Lipa’s “clever songwriting” and “instantly recognizable voice” in a tribute she wrote when Time magazine put Lipa on its Next 100 list of young influencers.
“Massive icon,” Lipa says, returning the favor, of Minogue. “For her to even know who I am is mad.”
Now Lipa, named best new artist at the Grammy Awards in 2019, is among the most-nominated acts at this month’s 63rd Grammys ceremony, where she’s up for six prizes,
including album, record and song of the year. (Only Beyoncé has more nods.) Though the Recording Academy has yet to detail plans for the show, set to take place March 14 in Los Angeles, Lipa is widely expected to perform on the CBS telecast.
Says Tom Corson, cochairman of Lipa’s label, Warner Records: “What we’re seeing is the dawning of a new superstar.”
According to Grammy oddsmakers, “Future Nostalgia” trails Taylor Swift’s rootsy “Folklore ” for the highly coveted album award, which Swift has won twice since 2010. Yet academy members have demonstrated a soft spot for the kind of crafty, intricate, handplayed dance music that Lipa’s disc represents: In 2014, Daft Punk upset expectations when the French duo beat their highly favored competitors (including Swift’s blockbuster “Red”) to take album of the year with “Random Access Memories.”
Lipa says the beautifully rendered “Future Nostalgia” is meant to evoke memories of music by swank ’70s and ’80s acts like Blondie and Chic — the latter of whose Nile Rodgers featured prominently on “Random Access Memories” — and to put across a more unified vibe than her grab bag of a self-titled 2017 debut.
Lipa’s album spawned a couple of monster streaming hits in “IDGAF,” a tart kiss-off with marching-band drums, and “New Rules,” which layers her low, husky singing over a sleek, EDM-ish beat. But “the only thing that connected each song was my voice,” as Lipa puts it in a video call from her place in L.A.
A reliably glamorous presence on magazine covers and in music videos, the singer is low-key this morning in a baggy tie-dyed top and purple beanie as her dog, a black Lab mix named Dexter, clambers onto the couch beside her. Lipa, who lives with her boyfriend of nearly two years, model Anwar Hadid (younger brother of fashionistas Bella and Gigi), gladly splits her time between here and London, though she admits she didn’t warm right away to L.A. — in part, perhaps, because her first crash pad was a “random Airbnb in the depths of Hollywood with bars across the door.”
“It said Santa Monica Boulevard, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of that street,’ ” she recalls of the listing. “Little did I know. Now I love it here.”
Producer Stephen “Koz” Kozmeniuk, who helped build both of Lipa’s albums from the ground up, says the singer wanted “Future Nostalgia” to reflect her buoyant mood. “She was happy, feeling good — like, ‘I just wanna dance,’ ” Koz says. “It was also a bit of a reaction to the fact that all the other music in the world was quite down at the time — the Billie Eilishes and all the trap stuff.”
Lipa, of course, didn’t know that COVID-19 was looming as she completed her big feel-good statement in early 2020. But when it came out last March, the album ended up offering a welcome escape from a quickly darkening reality. What’s more, “Don’t Start Now” touched off a plague-times disco revival that yielded pleasure-obsessed hits by the likes of Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and Doja Cat, whose “Say So” is nominated against “Don’t Start Now” for record of the year.
“Something this pandemic has taught us, I think, is to live in the moment,” Lipa says.
If space got crowded under the glitter ball, Lipa still stands out. For starters, there’s the exceptionally wide range of her appeal, which in recent months has led to both a collaboration with the hip-hop boy band Brockhampton and a countryfied cover of “Don’t Start Now” by Nashville’s Ingrid Andress. (Among Lipa’s other duet partners of late are Miley Cyrus, J Balvin, DaBaby and Andrea Bocelli.)
“Dua is super-cool,” says Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract, a hero to Supreme-clad kids more attuned to Camp Flog Gnaw than to the Hot 100. What did his fans make of Lipa’s appearance on a remix of Brockhampton’s song “Sugar”? “They were probably like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t expect this — but why does it kind of work?’ ” Abstract says.
There’s also Lipa’s unique handling of her celebrity. At a moment when music by many female pop stars is scrutinized for insight into their private lives — be they established A-listers like Swift and Ariana Grande or up-and-comers like Olivia Rodrigo of “Drivers License” fame — Lipa’s songs resist a closely personal read. It’s not that they’re unfeeling; bangers such as “Levitating” and “Hallucinate” combine whooshing grooves with words about bodies in motion to create something downright ecstatic.
But the music tends proudly toward abstraction; it’s seeking to embody the emotional experience of love or sex or adventure, rather than inviting you to ponder any given episode between her and Hadid. And because she’s such an expressive singer, with loads of texture in her voice, she pulls it off.
“Dua brings a real star quality to her songs,” says Sarah Hudson, a veteran songwriter who’s worked with Katy Perry and Camila Cabello and who wrote “Levitating” with Lipa, Koz and Clarence Coffee Jr. “But she’s slightly mysterious. At the same time, she’s so genuine that you feel close to the music.” Hudson is right: You feel close to the music, if not necessarily to Dua Lipa herself.
Polished but forthright in conversation, Lipa cops to a certain selfprotective instinct after a few years in the limelight. “I’ve grown to be more private because so much of my life is public, and I probably censor myself more than I used to,” she says. “I also don’t love the idea of