Troy Kotsur spent several years looking for the right role. After winning an Academy Award for Coda – a landmark moment for deaf actors – he became focused on finding a character who was not defined by his disability. The task proved more difficult than expected.
“I want to play characters that audiences haven’t seen before,” Kotsur tells The National. “The bottom line is to avoid playing a victim or someone to have sympathy for. Cry me a river. Times have changed.”
That search is what drew him to the screenplay for the horror film Primate. The story follows two sisters and their friends as they are terrorised by the family’s beloved chimpanzee after it contracts rabies – until their father returns home to confront the threat.
In the script, the father, Adam, was written as having full hearing. When director Johannes Roberts approached Kotsur for the role, the two recognised that reworking the character would feel natural, and would deepen the film rather than redirect it.
“We were both struck by how organic it felt within the realm of linguistics,” Roberts says. “The movie is about communication – within the family and with the chimpanzee. Incorporating American Sign Language really enhanced that story.
“Most importantly, he’s still just Dad. That really appealed to me, and I think it appealed to him. It wasn’t written as a deaf character; he just happened to be deaf.”
Rather than reshaping the role from the ground up, the changes emerged through behaviour. Phone calls became text messages or video calls. Public events included interpreters. Adam’s laptop was as a tool of access, not explanation. These decisions were treated as practical realities in the film, embedded into its rhythm rather than singled out for emphasis.
“We made small additions to make it believable and authentic,” Kotsur says. “Hearing people tend to use their voice to communicate. We use a visual language.”
An ASL consultant was also brought on to teach the core cast to sign – a process co-star Johnny Sequoyah, who plays Adam’s daughter Lucy, describes as one of the highlights of the shoot.
“They took the time to really sit down with me and understand how Lucy would have grown up as a Coda,” Sequoyah says. “We went through the script together and found places where we could add elements, like Lucy signing to her sister Kate in the closet so they wouldn’t be heard.”
The process fostered an unexpected closeness on set. “It became something that bonded everybody together,” Roberts says.
It also opened up new possibilities for tension. In one sequence, Adam returns home unaware of the danger unfolding around him. As he moves through the house, the audience experiences the space from his perspective – in silence – aware that the infected chimpanzee could be lurking near by.
“Troy had so much fun allowing us to enter his audio world – his lack of audio – and playing into the horror of that,” Roberts says.
With the film earning positive reviews and strong early box office, Kotsur is already looking ahead to roles that offer the same sense of originality, including his telepathic turn in Apple TV+’s Foundation.
“A cop who happens to be deaf,” he says. “The President of the United States, who happens to be deaf. Maybe I’d demand everyone learn sign language so we don’t need interpreters. That could be interesting. And I’d love to do a western.”
“Times have definitely changed,” Kotsur adds. “They’re a little better now.”
Primate is in cinemas now across the Middle East
