HIS SHOCK COLLAPSE
Rachel hopes her story of a deaf child will inspire young sufferers Abused actresses fear reprisals if they share their ‘horrific’ stories
Oldman and Gisele Schmidt will take a late honeymoon Rachel with Spielberg and Chris to leave the cinema feeling more educated and to spark a conversation.
“Now I’m working on the feature film version. It will be a very different story – three stages of the child’s life, from a little child to adulthood.”
In May, Rachel is screening the film in Parliament and she hopes that sign language will one day be introduced into the national curriculum – a message conveyed at the end of the film.
For the sake of authenticity, Rachel believed the title role had to be played by a child who was profoundly deaf and could use sign language.
A nationwide search involved the auditioning of 100 children before they found their star – eightyear-old Maisie Sly, who had never acted before.
Rachel says that Maisie isn’t fazed by Hollywood, saying: “She is incredibly natural. She has a strange maturity. She is a total joy to be around. We went to the Oscars’ luncheon and we met Steven Spielberg. That was very surreal. He said congratulations and that he was going to watch it.”
Rachel’s fiancé Chris Overton directed The Silent Child, which was made on a £10k budget through crowdfunding. “So we are really proud to even be here,” added Rachel. FORMER Hollyoaks star-turned-oscar nominee Rachel Shenton wants to give hope to thousands of kids by turning her story about a profoundly deaf girl into a feature film.
The Silent Child – which has been shortlisted for an Academy Award in the category Best Live Action Short – tells the tale of deaf four-year-old girl Libby, who lives an isolated life until a social worker, played by Rachel, teaches her sign language.
The 30-year-old actress, from Stoke-on-trent, was inspired to write the film because of her own family’s experience. When she was 12 her dad Geoff went deaf after receiving treatment Maisie for chemotherapy. stars as deaf Libby
For the last 18 months of his life he couldn’t hear at all. Her response was to become an ambassador for the National Deaf Children’s Society.
Rachel said: “This is the first film I have written. It’s incredibly close to me so the writing of the story felt natural.
“I knew the story I wanted to tell. I knew what I wanted people to feel like, to connect to the characters, to know about the subject and to understand it. It is a low-profile disability – you can’t see it and it’s not lifethreatening.
“People don’t know about this subject so ultimately I wanted people HOLLYWOOD actresses are too scared to speak out about sex abuse for fear of reprisals.
One film insider told how some of the women who have made claims now worry about their careers.
It comes after a spate of women accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of a string of sex attacks.
One of the first to speak out was Charmed actress Rose Mcgowan, 44, who accused him
Weinstein of rape in a series of tweets last year. Weinstein strongly denies all claims of non-consensual sex. Leah Meyerhoff, founder of Film Fatales, a group for female filmmakers, told how some women will not talk because of fears of being blacklisted. She said: “Absolutely, I think people are scared. It’s amazingly brave to speak out against harassment. I know a ton of women who privately are still sharing horrific stories – that are not in a position where they feel they are not going to get blacklisted.”