people perceive disability as a weakness as an illness is something that needs to be cured and we have to fight against that someone said what's wrong with you and I was like what's wrong with me what's what's wrong with you like I'm I'm fine man I don't got any [Music] problems I'm RJ midy I uh I am an actor I've been on number of shows um such as Breaking Bad and switch to birth I was diagnosed with cereal poliy around 3 I um was in a lot of physical and occupational and speech therapy I was
what you would call a severe tow Walker what they would do is they would bend my foot as far as they could bend it which was not fun and they would cast it and every some couple weeks they would cut the cast off and bend it further and then bend it further until the foot was flat I'm always working at taking control it's a fight it will always be a fight I was born in Jackson Mississippi I was around 12 13 years old when I moved to LA I started acting to meet kids my own
age I was just uh doing extra work and acting classes and it just kept evolving and about 6 months later uh I booked Breaking Bad and really the breakdown for for the character was uh was dark hair uh big eyebrows and Mild tral pausing that was my life except for the meth andet me I didn't know at the time but my character was based on a a real person that Vince Gilligan the Creator and writer Breaking Bad new in college I think it's really important that we have real stories on television film that are having
real impact people are hungry for realism they're hungry to see characters like them and I think that's what was really important with Breaking Bad it show characters that everyone can relate to how else can people with a disability or a condition remove the stigma of not being able-bodied don't hide your disability don't hide whatever it is that you're hiding and I'm not just talking about physical disability I'm talking about mental disability about to show who you are and what you are to the world I tried to avoid being an advocate spokes model and all this
different things but the more you try to avoid doing it the more I found myself in the middle of it I do a lot of philanthropic stuff I sit on a couple of boards set up my own uh in bullying campaign called cut the bull I'll be um broadcasting for Channel 4 out of the UK for the Paro Olympics so I'll be reporting and broadcasting in studio and on the ground I'm really excited to see what's going to happen and what I'll learn and who I'll become I'm lucky that I can be an advocate I'm
lucky that I can do what I do and talk to the people that I get to talk to and I think we all have an obligation to have an impact for the positive to uh the media to what we present ourselves as and to the impact that we can have because there is a tremendous uh hole that is missing in that that market of uh positive and important uh outcomes
