Entry #2: James Moore on Walter White Jr.

From Albuquerque to the Yorkshire Dales—the power of disability representation.

James Moore is, in my experience, a man of few words, yet each one feels—immaculately chosen.

In playing Emmerdale’s Ryan Stocks, it feels like he took everything we are and have been and put it into this character—we both have cerebral palsy. However, its effects are different for each of us, as just about anyone with cerebral palsy will tell you.

I love how art can move someone and make them feel seen—a handwritten letter—a soap opera.

Watching his portrayal of Ryan, I often think, if this doesn’t land with an audience, then I don’t know what we’re doing here.

Ryan’s value comes from his—ordinariness.

Through storylines and relationships, there are dips, notes, and cycles in everything. Ups and downs happen, especially there—and Ryan happens to be disabled.

That’s what I’ve always loved about soap; it’s handcrafted with the ordinary dents that make up life. That spot there? It’s where someone chipped the paint when they threw a glass on the warpath.

This character was the first time I heard anyone talk the way I speak—my voice is my biggest insecurity; it can feel so coarse and cracked, throat throbbing, an edge to each syllable, shaken yet kinda, sorta, knitted together.

When people talk about disability representation, I think of James because I’ve never seen anyone put in so much—sincerely. 

As he told me at the time of Emmerdale’s Marlon Dingle stroke storyline:

"I actually gave a lot of advice to writers about this storyline. A lot of it comes from real experiences I've had from people treating me different because of my disability."

He was also the first person in the industry to let me have an interview. He’s seemingly Mr. Too-cool-to-be-that bothered—with just the right amount of bother.

If disability representation has improved, he has a hand in it.

All this is to say his choice of "favourite" disabled character tracks—makes sense right the way through.

When I say I use disability representation as a shorthand way of knowing my own—this is what I mean.

Breaking Bad follows Walter White, a chemistry teacher turned meth producer. His son, Walter White Jr. (RJ Mitte), has cerebral palsy (CP), but it isn’t put in to make much of a difference. However, arguably, it shows the subtle dips, notes, and cycles in everything, including the strain it can put on parent-child relationships.

This is an introduction to James's life:

“My life, in my own words, is quite a lot to think about. It’s pretty good at the moment. Me and my new wife, I guess it still feels weird saying that, we’ve been busy, you know, we’ve been looking at houses and stuff. I’m still working; I’m in Leeds at the moment; busy days but good, good storylines...good fun.”

As much as possible, I have used James' words because he has a straight-to-the-point approach, and disabled voices are too often scoured out—cleaned up.

It often feels like we work so hard to find nuance—or a 'gotcha' moment—that we hardly ever just say it.

Here, casual revelations are seemingly tucked into innocuous conversation—as someone waits for a train. 

“I actually, the only memory I have of seeing disability on screen, I guess the first time would’ve been—”

At this point, the speech is cut out by a train announcement; real life does push through. 

“Walter Jr in Breaking Bad, and that kinda made me realise, especially because he has cerebral palsy like me, it kind of gave me that experience, kind of made me think, “Oh wow” this is possible for me; maybe I can do this. That inspired me to get back into acting again because I felt like, before that I felt like, a lot of disabled people weren’t getting involved in representation. I saw that and went, “Okay, hey, maybe they are, and maybe I just need to look into it a bit more. That’s kind of where I started. That’s what made me want to pursue it.”

“The thing about Walt Jr,” according to James, is that even though he was “very annoying,” this felt like it required emphasis in print because James hit “annoying” hard in his voice note descriptions. But he was also a really well “rounded character that had a very deep personality.” He had independence and thoughts that didn’t involve his disability, and some storylines simply did: “I liked how he played it; it was very sort of ambitious. He knew what he wanted. He knew how to react in the moment...that was really cool.”

The personal impact of seeing the character on screen is palpable:

“I thought, wow, there’s a disabled guy on TV playing a disabled character. You know, I’m sat here like, what, when did I watch Breaking Bad?

I was probably 24 or 23. Wanting...to be an actor my whole life, but I didn’t really see any avenue or any way in. And then that made me think, “Oh, maybe they are looking for people, and they are looking for individuals to fill these roles. Maybe I should kind of have a look again, and that’s what got me back into acting and ultimately got me a career.”

What about the state of modern disability representation?

“I say this in every interview I do, but obviously, the landscape has improved.”  It’s a tough one because, “on the one hand, you don’t want disabled characters to be put into a show just because they are the disabled characters. You want them to be well-rounded, have meaning within the show, and have character-building beyond just their disability. But you also want them to be in the show because you want to see yourself represented or you want to be an actor and that role—”

In the background, there’s a 10-minute warning for someone’s train.

“If they are not casting disabled characters, then disabled actors aren’t going to get a look in. That’s really important to do, as it is to write disabled characters so we can have an opportunity.” 

“I think we just need to keep poking people.” Here, he speaks about the issue of casting non-disabled people in disabled roles.

I have written it down completely because if there’s one thing I know about James, it’s how wonderfully articulate—and no-nonsense he can be when he’s on one.

How focused—fiercely gorgeous—our entirely justified rage is.

“We’ve got to poke people and say, ‘Hey, look, look at this’. This is wrong. You shouldn’t be doing this because you wouldn’t do it with any other demographic—but you do it to disabled people all the time. And no one says anything, really, apart from disabled people. Because for whatever reason, it’s still seen as fairly acceptable for an able-bodied actor to play a disabled person. Even though we should frankly be past that now, people still do it for whatever reason, and no one cares. So we need to speak up every time we see it and encourage casting agencies to stick to diversity principles and encourage companies to put diversity principles in place. A lot of right-wingers think that it’s DEI or culture outrage...rubbish...whatever…

But in reality, it means that people who wouldn’t normally get an opportunity actually get a chance, and people who deserve a chance. I think it’s about time we started doing that and we started casting disabled people in these roles. Well, because one, we need more work, and two, it’s an accurate representation because—who better to represent disability than disabled people?”