Dying For Sex actor Rob Delaney has joined the cast of Being Heumann, alongside Ballroom actress Madeline Delp, and The Piano Lesson star Ray Fisher.
Rob Delaney has joined the cast of Being Heumann.
The Dying For Sex actor is the latest star announced for the civil rights drama movie, alongside Ballroom actress Madeline Delp, and The Piano Lesson star Ray Fisher.
Mark Ruffalo, Ruth Madeley, and Dylan O’Brien will also appear in the film, which is based on the memoir Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights, by disability activist Judy Heumann.
According to Deadline, Delaney will portray Congressman Miller in the Apple movie.
The character is said to be inspired by George Miller, who supported Heumann in her disability rights battle in the 1970s.
Disability advocate Delp is to portray disability rights activist Kitty Cone and Fisher will appear as Chuck Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party.
Heumann – who was left paralysed from polio aged 18 months old – is best known for leading a 28-day sit in at the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in San Francisco in 1977.
She led more than 100 people to take over the building, to protest that the Rehabilitation Act’s Section 504 – which protects qualified individuals from discrimination based on their disability – should be enforced.
The Act had been signed in 1973, but Section 504 had not been enforced, but the protest resulted in the signing of Section 504, meaning all federal spaces were accessible.
President Jimmy Carter had vowed to enforce Section 504 after he was elected president in 1976, but Joseph Califano, Carter’s Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, then said he wanted more time to review it, sparking the protest.
Heumann previously told the BBC: “We were very, very concerned that they were going to make drastic changes to the rules.
“We had been fighting very hard for many years to get the rules [to] where they were. So we said, if the regulations were not signed by a certain day there would be demonstrations around the country in nine or 10 cities.”
Madeley will take on the role of Heumann – who died in 2023, aged 75 – and Ruffalo will portray Califano.
Sian Heder will direct the Apple Studios movie.
Rob Delaney joins Being Heumann film
