Images courtesy of Collection Christophel/Alamy
Daniel Durant (middle) in a film still from CODA
Daniel Durant (middle) in a film still from CODA
Coming-of-age movies are famous for exploring the anxieties that come with growing up. And while contemporary coming-of-age films have come to be known for breaking all sorts of social conventions, the Oscar-nominated film CODA is singular to the genre.
CODA—a title that’s not a musical reference but an acronym that stands for “child of Deaf adults”—stars Duluth native Daniel Durant as Leo Rossi. Leo is the older brother to Ruby (Emilia Jones), who, as the only hearing person in their family, has always served as their interpreter. The movie follows Ruby as she battles all the complexities of her identity and her passions paired with the pressure of having her family and their multigenerational fishing business depending on her. Director Sian Heder explores all of this with hilarious and heartwarming candor.
Leo has to deal with the frustration of having to depend on his younger sister for business and social scenarios. Being no stranger to the situation, Durant really “empathize[d] with his character, Leo, a strong Deaf guy, standing on his own two feet, wanting to make his own way in the world,” he told the Star Tribune last August.
Durant has been acting since he was 9, thanks to one of his teachers. He was the only Deaf kid in Duluth’s Lakewood Elementary—and was often bullied for it. Luckily, he bonded with a teacher who had hearing difficulties. His teacher, having noticed Durant’s trademark expressiveness, wrote a play and gave him the lead role. The rest, as they say, is history.
“I really loved it,” Durant told the Star Tribune. “I went up to my moms and said, ‘That was great. I want to find more opportunities to do that.’”
And so he did. In 2012 he joined the Deaf West Theatre’s production of Cyrano, which is where he first met his future on-screen mother, Marlee Matlin. Acting has taken him from the stage to the screen. He scored his first recurring role on ABC’s Switched at Birth and was briefly featured on Netflix’s You before landing his role in CODA.
The film and its mostly Deaf cast are making history. Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin, who play Durant’s parents in the three-time Oscar-nominated film, are the only Deaf actors to be nominated for an Oscar. (Matlin won an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God in 1987.)
“I think CODA was part of kind of that seismic shift that allowed for that to happen,” Durant told WDIO radio after the news of the Oscar nominations. “So, to be nominated at an Oscars, I think that that would even have a bigger impact going forward.”
