Signers who have found fame

Thamsanqa Jantjie

Caused outrage when he stood alongside global leaders making “childish hand gestures” in a bizarre attempt to sign their tributes to the former president at the Nelson Mandela memorial service at Johannesburg’s Soccer City in 2014.

Lydia Callis

New York magazine called her “Hurricane Sandy’s breakout star” in 2012. As the sign language interpreter for then New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, she stole the spotlight.

Marshall Greene

It was an urgent evacuation order in Florida in 2017 as Hurricane Irma loomed, but the sign language interpreter tasked with alerting deaf viewers was actually delivering nonsense — words like “pizza“and “monsters” and phrases like “help you at that time to use bear hug”.

Sam Harris

Another sign language interpreter during the Hurricane Irma crisis, he became a viral star for his vivid expressions as he translated Florida governor Rick Scott’s warnings. He was invited onto the Jimmy Kimmel Show where he signed the talk-show host’s monologue to big laughs.

Virginia Moore

Kentucky governor Andy Beshear’s sign language interpreter earned praise during daily Covid-19 briefings. HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver gave her a shoutout for her reaction to the news Beshear shared that someone got sick after attending a “coronavirus party”. “What the f*** is wrong with you people?” is how Oliver described her expression after she signed “coronavirus party“.

Marlee Matlin’s interpreter Jack Jason The child of deaf parents, he started interpreting for deaf actress Matlin after she starred in the film Children of a

Lesser God. He interpreted for Matlin when she won the Academy Award for that film in 1986.