People with disabilities have been historically underrepresented in the entertainment industry. In this episode, host Sandra Abrams chats with U.K.- based actress, writer, and disability advocate, Melissa Johns. Johns explains how she landed the role as the brainy Miss Scott in the British detective series, Grantchester, where her disability (born without her right forearm and hand) is a non-factor, who she called first when she landed a role on the iconic soap, Coronation Street, and how her foundation is helping others with disabilities break down barriers in the entertainment industry. She also shares what happened when intimate photos of her were posted online and how she got her power back through writing.
To learn more about Melissa Johns and her organization TripleC, check out: https://triplec.org.uk/
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Subscribe to learn more about filmmaking, production, media makers, creator resources, visual storytelling, and every aspect that brings film, television, and video projects from concepts to our screens. Check out the MediaMakerSpotlight.com show page to find even more conversations with industry professionals that inspire, educate, and entertain!
We on the Women in Film & Video (WIFV) Podcast Team work hard to make this show a great resource for our listeners, and we thank you for listening!
People with disabilities have been historically underrepresented in the entertainment industry. In this episode, host Sandra Abrams chats with U.K.- based actress, writer, and disability advocate, Melissa Johns. Johns explains how she landed the role as the brainy Miss Scott in the British detective series, Grantchester, where her disability (born without her right forearm and hand) is a non-factor, who she called first when she landed a role on the iconic soap, Coronation Street, and how her foundation is helping others with disabilities break down barriers in the entertainment industry. She also shares what happened when intimate photos of her were posted online and how she got her power back through writing.
To learn more about Melissa Johns and her organization TripleC, check out: https://triplec.org.uk/
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Subscribe to learn more about filmmaking, production, media makers, creator resources, visual storytelling, and every aspect that brings film, television, and video projects from concepts to our screens. Check out the MediaMakerSpotlight.com show page to find even more conversations with industry professionals that inspire, educate, and entertain!
We on the Women in Film & Video (WIFV) Podcast Team work hard to make this show a great resource for our listeners, and we thank you for listening!
0:00:02 - VO
Quiet on the set. All together, please, and action. Welcome to Media Monuments presented by Women in Film Video in Washington DC. Media Monuments features conversations with industry professionals speaking on a range of topics of interest to screen-based media makers.
0:00:27 - Sandra Abrams
People with disabilities have been historically underrepresented in the entertainment industry, but that is changing. One place, you see, this is the British detective series Masterpiece Grantchester, which runs on PBS here on this side of the pond. The crime series has cast and actress Melissa Johns as the sharp and grainy police station secretary, Miss Scott, who happens to have a disability in real life, but that's not part of her storyline. I'm your host, Sandra Abrams, and in this episode of Media Monuments I will be chatting with Melissa Johns. She's also a disability activist and we're going to talk more about that. Welcome to Media Monuments podcast, Melissa. Hello, thank you so much. Well, I just want you to know that Grantchester has a huge fan base over here on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, so we're very excited to chat with you.
0:01:19 - Melissa Johns
That's so, so lovely. Grantchester is just the most wonderful show, and so to know that it's loved and appreciated. The other side of the pond is just gorgeous, so that's lovely to hear. Thank you Before we get into it.
0:01:32 - Sandra Abrams
I wanted for you to share, in your own words, a little bit about your disability.
0:01:37 - Melissa Johns
Absolutely so. Yes, as you say, my name is Melissa Johns. I'm a disabled actor and writer and I was born without my right forearm. So the terminology that I use is that I have a limb difference or an upper limb difference. It wasn't a loss of limb, it was the way that I was born. Quite often we're trying to kind of change terminology because quite often you hear Melissa has a missing right arm and of course you know this isn't an episode of Grantchester. It's not missing. There's not going to be a big reward if you find it. It's not missing at all. It's just the way I was born. I'm just big on trying to use really neutral terminology with that. So I have a limb difference.
0:02:24 - Sandra Abrams
Well, I also want to ask you about how you even decided to be an actress. I know for me, when I was looking at careers, I realized I can't sing, I can't dance, I don't have much talent here, so that was something that really didn't seem to be an option. But you know, you said oh, I'm going to be an actress, I'm going to write shows and television. Tell me what sparked your passion.
0:02:52 - Melissa Johns
I often question whether I was really brave or really stupid or maybe a little mixture of both. Maybe everyone working in the arts is a little bit brave, and you know all of those things. I decided to be that I wanted to be an actor at a fairly young age. I mean, I was part of lots of amateur dramatic shows in my little hometown and I just loved the feeling, the feeling of going on stage and taking on characters and you know the excitement at the end. It was all just really, really lovely. And I then decided to go on and do that at school, gcse and A-level. And then I took a year out travelling and when I got back I thought I'm going to try and get into drama school. I know drama school is hard to get into, but I'm going to try.
I was really really lucky that I got in on my first round of my first year of auditioning. I went to an amazing acting school called East 15 Acting School in the outskirts of London. I'm not from London, so moving to the Big Smoke was, yeah, certainly a journey and honestly, I never had a plan B, which again is either brave or silly I'm still not quite sure but I really didn't ever have a plan B. I just needed this to work, and I never imagined a life where it wouldn't. And now, at 33, that kind of terrifies me that I hadn't ever thought of what my life would be like if this didn't work out. But I also wonder if maybe that's what pushed me even harder to make sure that I would work.
0:04:34 - Sandra Abrams
That's fantastic. I think you have a lot of strength in doing that. That's wonderful. And I also think, ok, so you're in acting school, you've got a commercial or you started on getting small gigs. How did that come about?
0:04:49 - Melissa Johns
So I did my three years and at the end of my three years we did a showcase where agents come and watch your final production, and that's where I met my incredible agent Nikki. We've now been together gosh 11, 12 years. She's the only agent I've ever had. We've been together right from me leaving drama school and about two weeks after I graduated, I was cast in a play. It was a theatre tour of a play of a bait and play that was about the Olympics and the Paralympics and I assumed when I went up for this role that you know, they'd obviously want me to play a Paralympian. And what was really wonderful actually was this show was so much about the stories. They didn't care who played the roles and I ended up actually not even playing any of the Paralympians, I only played Olympians, because the point was that you so had to hone in on not being an actor in the sense of you know, I'm showing you what I can do. The value was really in the storytelling and it was this wonderful like four-month tour where you're in Edinburgh, which is just beautiful, and I was put up in an apartment and I was getting a weekly fee for doing something I loved and I remember thinking, oh gosh, why do people know so much? Like this is really easy. I've only just graduated and you know how wrong I was, because after that tour finished, real life as an actor, it really did hit.
And actually I started to realise Every you know people were right. When you tell people you want to be an actor, uh, they kind of maybe give you a slightly questioning look anyway, or they might say, oh, I did drama once or I did some acting once, and, and you know, you have to get get through all of that anyway. But actually when you're a disabled actor, you have another layer. You have this other layer of there's almost a distrust, a disbelief there's. You know, uh, are you sure I don't see people like you on screens? Are you sure this is what you want to do? And up until that moment I'd never even assumed that it would be a problem.
But after that first job my eyes were really open to to the industry and how, how we treat disabled actors and the lack of employment and representation. Um, and so that kind of started a real fight for me. That was when, um, you know I was very fortunate I was casting lovely little shows like Doctors on the BBC, which sadly, we. We heard the news just yesterday that after 23 years, doctors is is being cut.
Um, doctors is a continuing drama here in the UK and you know we have to protect those dramas because they're quite often the things that you know new writers can get experience on, or new directors can get experience on, or actors might get some of their first roles on on those sorts of shows, and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't put the quality in jeopardy, but what it does is it helps support people's careers quite early on, and so you know we have to try and support those where we can. But I was kind of getting all of these, these sort of little roles here and there, um, and it it just wasn't enough. It was, it wasn't enough to make a difference. Um, I started to look around and see how many non-disabled actors were playing disabled roles, as if it was, you know, wearing disability, like it was a costume.
0:08:12 - Sandra Abrams
That is a big issue that people are finally starting to recognize and talk about.
0:08:17 - Melissa Johns
Absolutely, you know, and not certainly not before it's time. Um, and I think my argument on that has always been you know, people always say but acting is acting and actually no, acting is about truth in imaginary circumstances. We all know that that's the um, that's the kind of phrase that actually acting is about, is about truth and authenticity. I actually don't mind if one day we get to a place where I don't know non-disabled actors maybe are playing certain um disabled roles, but only if we can also play the non-disabled roles. So you know, the reason why we have to fight so hard for this at the moment is because you know when, if we're not even being seen for the roles we know we can do, then there's, then there's no hope. So when that playing field is leveled out and and we're all playing all the roles, then maybe we'll pipe down about it a little bit. But until that day comes, I think we have to continue to fight for our place in this industry and at least play the roles that we know that we can do. And so for me, kind of realizing that started a lot of my advocacy work in in just trying to champion um deaf, disabled and neurodivergent creatives in the arts and I just realized how important it was that this industry will always be richer, with more voices in it, um, and voices from so many different walks of life and and and backgrounds.
I feel very privileged that that's become part of my journey. It started off feeling like a bit of a battle, but actually now it's something that I get to do alongside being an actor. I get to advocate, I get to work with amazing other deaf, disabled, neurodivergent actors that are doing the same fight, and it actually feels like a privilege because you know, now, when I get a role, it's lovely, and I get to call my mom and my dad and and my nan and I get to say, you know, oh gosh, I've just been cast in this and that that feeling I will never go away. How wonderful that feeling is, it's, it's you can't compare. And at the same time, I know it holds even more weight because it shows our next generation of young people that are deaf, disabled, neurodivergent, that they can also keep going to work in the area that they want to work in and having that extra strand to it, uh, it just feels even more precious actually.
0:10:34 - Sandra Abrams
You're making your way and I'm blocking the situation. So letting them know that there is a way forward. You mentioned is about speaking to your parents, about getting a role, and I have to confess so I saw that you were on Coronation Street when my grandparents were alive. They lived in Leeds, england oh wow. So I remember going to visit them and watching Coronation Street with my grandmother, so I Thought that was really awesome. I was like, oh, just brought back a lot of memories I don't know for me in seeing that you were in that show, coronation.
0:11:06 - Melissa Johns
Street is, you know, a sort of heart of Britain thing. It was created to kind of just really show the lives of northern working-class people and it's the thing that brought so many working-class people together. Actually, you know, growing up, coronation Street would start at 7 30 on a Monday, wednesday and Friday, and that's where we'd all meet, in the front room, you know, in the living room and around the fire, and you'd have Coronation Street on and it could be accessed by everyone. It's a show that's so full of, so full of heart and so to be cast in that I was actually in LA on the day that I got the phone call. I'd won a fitness competition because I'd been working really hard to kind of show a bit of a crossover between body difference and fitness and I'd actually won a competition from. There are some developers that have a Fitness concept called pounds that started in LA and they ran this big competition and somehow I'm not sure how I ended up winning it and they, they bought me over to LA and it was wonderful.
This is this is back in 2017 and it was. It was great. And it was the penultimate night before I was coming home and About two o'clock in the morning, my agent was calling me and I thought, oh, but she knows I'm in LA. This is so strange, I bet she'd she'd forgotten. And I answered the phone and she said oh gosh, she sound tired. I've just remembered you're in LA. And I said yeah, it's fine. Is everything okay? Um, and she said darling, you've been cast in Coronation Street. And I said but I haven't even had an audition. And she said I know, and the reason for that is that, uh, two years previous. So I had this phone call in 2017, two years previous to that. And and this just shows how you never know what's around the corner, you know, the story, I think, for me, is, is the the absolute kind of cherry on the cake of you? You just do not know what. What's about. You know, you don't know who's talking about you behind closed doors, you don't know what conversations are happening.
And in 2015, coronation Street and one of their actresses, sherri Lee Houston, who I, who I now work with, set up a workshop day for 10 actors, 10 disabled actors, and they got them to come to Coronation Street onto the set where it's filmed, and we did a workshop day and they let us film a scene to go on our show reel and out of I think like maybe over 300 people applied and I felt so lucky that I'd got one of these workshop places, um, and I filmed my scene and I had it as part of my show reel and it was great. And the last thing the casting team said to me on that day was keep in touch with us. So let's know what you're doing. And so I'm not saying bombard people with emails and make a nuisance of yourself, but if someone in this industry has opened up the door to communication and has said you know, look, keep in touch, find reasons to keep in touch. You know, every, every kind of six months, I would fight. I would have something to tell them. Maybe I just got a little part in something, and the last email that I sent to them was um, I was living in London at the time and I sent them an email saying uh, do you know what I loved Manchester so much? I'm moving up, and I just wanted you to know that I'm moving up. And uh, you know, if any opportunities have become available, as as always, please do think of me. Blah, blah, blah, um.
And so, without me knowing, the casting team when this new part came up Imogen uh, character called Imogen in the show Um, they sent it to the director. They sent the the show reel scene that I'd filmed on on the cobbles to the director and said should we bring Melissa in for an audition? And he said, uh, from that scene, she already looks like she's part of this show and she never been in it before. And they said, no, she just filmed it as part of this kind of disability awareness day. And he said no, I don't want her to audition, I want you to give her the role straight away. So this is two years after I'd done this workshop.
And so Nikki, my agent, phoning me in 2017 at two o'clock in the morning. It was those in LA, um, and I remember that the network kept breaking up. The signal was really bad and I said I can't hear you. I just heard you say something about coronation street. And she said don't worry, darling, go back to sleep and I'll speak to you tomorrow. She hung up and, of course, I absolutely couldn't go back to sleep, but she did follow it up with an email that said the subject said don't worry, darling, you're not dreaming.
0:15:16 - Sandra Abrams
I love that. No way, you're not dreaming. Yes, you got the part.
0:15:20 - Melissa Johns
You said, you really did get the part and for me that was. You know, whilst I've been fortunate to go on and have so many other wonderful roles that I'm super proud of Coronation Street, you know I can't pretend that that wasn't a huge, huge thing. For me. It's the thing that gave me a platform to be able to continue advocacy work on disability in the arts. It gave me the chance to work on a show that I'd spent my whole life watching with my parents. It gave me a spotlight to be able to try to make the changes that I wanted to try to achieve, and that was a real learning curve for me at 27. Being cast in that show was. It was a big one, and from then on, you know, things really did change.
0:16:07 - Sandra Abrams
That's fantastic. So I think in that character you were a lesbian. You were the girlfriend of Kate Connor, I think is her name, and so then, now that's over, you get cast in Grantchester as the. It seems like you're the prim secretary. Well, I don't want to characterize your character on Grantchester, Mimi, you can tell us a little bit about her?
0:16:28 - Melissa Johns
Miss Scott, absolutely. So we're now filming for series nine, my fourth season on the show. I will. Firstly, I remember getting the call for the audition and I have to be really honest. My agent said you know, you've, have you heard of Grantchester? And I said, yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's a really popular show. And they said, well, they want you to to audition self tape. It was during COVID times, so we weren't going in and doing in-person audition, it was. It was a. It was a crazy time and everything was, you know, still is about self tapes. But but self tapes are even more important than ever.
And I remember saying to my agent I said, look, you and I both know I don't get cast in period shows. I don't know, I don't know why that is. It's just for some reason the TV industry assumes that disabled people want around in in the 1800s or, you know, the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, because we're never shown. We really aren't. And I said, you know, do you think that they might just be ticking a box? And just you know saying, oh, let's, let's, let's just make sure that we've seen a disabled person for this role. And I mean, do you know what I'm? I don't mind tick boxes. If we're not doing something organically and we have to put some tick boxes in place to be able to get to a place where it's happening organically, I'm okay with that. Um, you have to start somewhere. And I really did just think, okay, it's nice of them to see me, but this is a role that I will never, ever get, because people like me aren't on shows like that. And I did the self tape. And then it was a few weeks later, um, I got a recall um, to do another tape and I thought, oh well, they, they really do want to see me for this. This is strange, um. But even then I thought, so many amazing actresses are going to be up for this role Like, it's lovely, you got this far.
And I remember the day when my agent rang and said uh, granchester have called and they want you to play Miss Scott. I. I honestly just filled with tears. The first person I called was my, my Nana, pam, because um Granchester is her favorite show. She has watched it since the very beginning and I just knew in that moment how unbelievably proud she was, um, and so was I.
This was so different. This wasn't, you know, carnation Street was incredible Life, uh, which was a, a Mike Bartlett drama that I did. It was my first lead on BBC. That was incredible. It was it was modern times. This just felt so groundbreaking for me because it was a period that I'd never done before and I also hadn't seen before.
Um, and then I sort of thought you know, well gosh, even if I don't like the character that much, at least I get to be on this amazing show. And then I read the script and I got to know Miss Scott and I I just fell in love even harder. Um, she is, quite honestly, one of the best characters that I've I've had the opportunity to play. Um, she is funny, she is witty, she has so much style. She can own a room with one line. She could literally walk into a room, say a line, and, and and everyone's looking. I just, you know, daisy Coulom, who, who created, uh, granchester and who is one of the lead writers on it, just created a character that is so badass and so brilliant.
Um, my arm has never, ever been mentioned. That's not because we've decided against it or for it, we've just it's. It's just never. It's just part of her, you know, and and people. That's up to everyone's interpretation. But what I loved is that no one ever thought oh, it's the 90,. You know, late 1950s, there'd never be a girl like that in in Inner Police Station. Would you know what? There's probably also not a little town or little village out there that have so many murders going on, but we don't seem to bat an eyelid to that, do we? So I reckon? I reckon, if we can get away with having that many murders in such a small place, um, I think it's perfectly fine to have a girl with one arm playing a a pretty badass secretary in a police office.
0:20:34 - Sandra Abrams
Your character is great and I love how you're. You're now helping Larry, but you're always they'll say oh, miss Scott, can you do already on it? So you know, you're totally you. Your character reminds me. I don't know if you ever saw there was a series here called Scandal starring Kerry Washington, and she would say it's handled. And that's what your arc reminds me of. You know, as you said, this badass it's handled.
0:20:58 - Melissa Johns
I'm already on top of it Absolutely, and it's just been so nice that the character has grown so much from series six. I know series eight has already come out for you. We actually haven't had it in the UK yet. Um, it's uh, you've, you've all seen it and um, yeah, my, my, even my parents still haven't Um, but you know she does get to do a little bit more by by leaving the, the police station, um, and you know there's there's even more exciting things to come in series nine, and it's just a joy to be able to allow her character to grow as much as it is.
0:21:35 - Sandra Abrams
I wanted to talk a little bit more about what else you're doing, because you talked about a one woman show that you were looking into, so tell us a little bit more about that, yeah.
0:21:45 - Melissa Johns
So I wrote a one woman show called Snatched, which we told the UK with last year. Snatched is an autobiographical piece performed by me and it explores my life growing up with a body very different to everyone else around me and the sorts of situations that I ended up being part of. You know, I now am very confident with my body and my arm, but there was a time, up until I was probably about 26, 27, where I wouldn't show my arm in a single photo. I would rather boil in the summer trying to cover my arm up. I would always make sure that I was facing a certain way of photos. I would choreograph dates so I'd go on a date with someone and I would get there early so that I could sit on a certain side of them. I'd say I was going to the toilet when really I was going to the kitchen to ask the chef to cut my dinner up for me before it came out. I would choreograph intimacy so that they wouldn't notice in intimate moments. I was quite literally a master of manipulation because I hated my body so much and I just didn't want the world to see it how I knew it looked, and so I manipulated situations for my body to look how I wanted people to see it, which was not disabled and not one arm, and so, you know, there's some pretty funny situations that I got myself into. So I thought, you know, let's we should explore a comedy about this.
Just after I left Coronation Street for the first time in 2018, my iCloud got hacked and intimate photos of me were released online and it made its way into lots of papers and that was, however horrible. Somewhat, it sounds, for someone to say to you the world has got hold of photos of you and they can be accessed by anyone. So the horrible that sounds is exactly how horrible it is. I remember I had so many missed calls from my agent on the day that we found out. The very big newspaper in the UK told my agent, and so my agent was trying to get hold of me and I was in a meeting, so I had my phone on silent and I couldn't hear it. But when I saw that I had so many missed calls off her, I thought that I had got a really good job. I was like, oh my God, this must be a massive job. She really wants to get hold of me. And when I eventually listened to a voice message off her. It said darling, please don't answer the phone to anyone, I need you to call me straight away. And I called her back and she said to me that paper has got hold of them and intimate photos of me have been leaked online and that it will be ran in lots of different papers. And yeah, I cried.
For the first few hours. I did a lot of very, very, very ugly crying, looking yourself in the mirror and find out just how do I actually look as ugly as I feel, as I'm doing this crying. But then actually, after a couple of hours, I just couldn't sit with this feeling anymore of not having any control. It was such. It was a feeling that I'm not used to and I don't deal well with, and so I thought you know what? I just have to go onto this website and I have to have a look at what's being said. And it was growing.
When I went on Google, I remember that it was just growing on how many sites it was on, because, although, sadly, this happens to so many women on a regular basis women that are in the public eye it rarely happens to a woman whose body is different to everybody else's, so that caused a whole other kind of wave of people and interest.
And it was only when I went onto those websites and I saw the way that my body was being completely depicted and ripped apart, not only as a woman but as a disabled woman. Doing that was the best thing I could have ever done, because it just started this absolute fire in my belly to go. I'm not ashamed of anything I've done. If this goes in any way to showing the world that every single body there is no conforming to the norm, if a body is a body and as a woman I should be able to enjoy it in any way that I can. I should be able to celebrate and embrace every bone that I was given, then that's what I will do. And actually it's that response that ended up getting so much attention. And so we worked the One Woman show and we were very lucky. Three production companies put offers in to turn it into a TV show and we're now working with a production company to turn it into a series.
0:26:36 - Sandra Abrams
So something that could have been horrific and very negative and just like I'm not moving forward with my career, you turned it around into something positive and I think that's a huge lesson learned for anybody who's maybe in this unfortunate situation. So congratulations on that. Anything that you can share at this point as far as when that TV show may come to fruition. What's happening with that right now?
0:27:02 - Melissa Johns
So we're in the very early stages of writing that at the moment. As soon as we have more to say on it we absolutely will I think I'll be shouting it from the rooftops. You know it's a show that is so close to my heart and it's so precious and I think is so relatable to so many people out there. You don't have to have a disability to not like a certain part of your body or feel you don't celebrate a certain part of your body and actually that's a really horrible place to be. You know our body is ours and we should use it in whatever way we want and we should give it as much freedom as we want. And when you don't celebrate all of your body, you're not living your freest life. You don't have to be disabled to relate to that, if everyone can. But you're absolutely right. You know when something happens, it's that classic thing, isn't it? Oh, shall I just turn it into art. It was the best form of therapy, it was the best way to get over it.
The industry we work in is about truth, and so write about the things you know so many people write about things that they have no idea on, and you know that's. That's not necessarily a problem. You know, research is a wonderful thing and it's great to find out about so many things in life that we haven't experienced, but I just think there is nothing that says authentic and wonderful as writing about the things you know, and it can start with anything you know. Start with a monologue. Just start with someone sitting down having a cup of tea and what's running through that characters head.
If you're not a writer like me, I used to get worried about using the word writer because I didn't quite yet truly sit and write. What I do is I voice dictate. So if something comes to my head, I I voice record, I record monologues or I record scenes and then and then I write them up and that ends up working out as your script editing process. Writing doesn't have to seem like this big scary thing. Right about what you know, and stuff is small is Half a scene or so. As I say, what's going to someone's head when the sat having a cup of tea.
0:29:01 - Sandra Abrams
That is fantastic advice, so write it down to use your microphone recorded and have your cup of tea with you.
0:29:08 - Melissa Johns
Exactly. I think it's really scary, the idea of sitting at a laptop and having a blank page and thinking I must write. That's really daunting and intimidating and you feel like you're not getting anywhere. Where is the minute you start walking around and you start recording some things on your phone.
0:29:24 - Sandra Abrams
Everything just gets bought to life a bit more and it's for me, it's the best process one final question I did want to ask you about is there any particular disability organization foundation that you're working with?
0:29:37 - Melissa Johns
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yes, I'm one of the directors and co creative leads of an organization called triple C. Triple C is a disabled led organization that creates projects that break down the barriers for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people accessing the arts. It works with young people disabled young people using creativity and role play and drama and dance as a kind of tool for self advocacy and confidence and self esteem. We've also got community outreach where we use, again, creative tools to combat isolation for disabled people living in the community. And then we've got a professional strand, which is dank, the disabled artist networking community, and dank is one of our biggest strands.
In triple C we now have over 1800 deaf, disabled and or neurodivergent creatives on our database. We run weekly masterclasses, webinars, networking events, mentoring schemes that are always working on the career development of deaf, disabled and neurodivergent creatives. And we also work with the industry. So we partner work with netflix, itb, sky, channel for bbc, amazon, you know all of the kind of major broadcasters and production companies and we work with them to support them, increasing employment and representation both on camera and off camera.
That's that super important cast and crew, that a deaf, disabled and neurodivergent so that hopefully sometime soon we can work in an industry that is so reflective of the world that we live in and so inclusive and so accessible, and not just because you know this is what the world's come to. And now we have to do this. Doing it because actually by not doing it you're missing out on some of some incredible voices, and so Hopefully our organization is going to continue that work. We actually won a BAFTA Last April and we won the special award for our services to the industry, and having that work recognized has just been absolutely fantastic. We hope we can do more, so hopefully we can come, come to the other side of the pond and do some stuff in America to Absolutely. We welcome that opportunity.
0:31:59 - Sandra Abrams
Thank you, melissa, for participating in our podcast. Grandchester is now filming season nine and Melissa's website for your advocacy foundation. Do you have a website that you can give us the web address for?
0:32:16 - Melissa Johns
We do it's triple C, so TRIPLECorguk and all of the information for our workers on there and Melissa for joining us.
0:32:25 - Sandra Abrams
thank you so much.
0:32:28 - VO
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