Being Heumann’s Rob Delaney: ‘Don’t sit around hoping another world is possible. Build it by hand’

The last time Big Issue spoke to Rob Delaney, he was in Deadpool and Wolverine. And we put him on our cover. “That was such an honour!” Now he’s in a superhero movie of a different kind – playing California Senator George Miller, who helped Judy Heumann get Section 504 implemented in the US, four long years after the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was signed into law by Richard Nixon. It changed the world as we know it. 

Delaney is sitting in his local park on a rainy day when Big Issue calls. He’s always loud, funny and friendly. But he’s always up for the fight as well because he believes, with all his heart, in the power of direct action and protest. Which is why he’s so delighted to feature in Being Heumann.

“It’s such a call to arms. When you think about people with disabilities in the 1970s throwing themselves out of their wheelchairs, pulling themselves up the steps of federal buildings and what they got done? Guerrilla tactics but they got the goods. I’m so inspired by it. Especially now, when newspaper owners and social media owners really try to neuter people and make them think there’s nothing you can do. Because that’s so absolutely not true. The way this film illustrates that is just so beautiful and vital and important for right now. 

“This is a big-budget movie with a majority disabled cast. That in itself is cause for celebration. We were on set and on location with people in wheelchairs and with crutches and walking with canes and all kinds of disabilities – and it was such a special environment to work in. 

“My wife and I met at a camp for people with disabilities 22 years ago. I had volunteered at a camp that was similar to Camp Jened in New York, where some of these activists first met. My wife and I met at a camp in Massachusetts called Camp Jabberwocky. So when I saw the documentary Crip Camp [which focused on disability activists, including Heumann, who had met at the camp], I was like, ‘Oh, that’s exactly what we were doing’. 

“Then, amazingly, after we got married, one of our children, Henry, was disabled by a brain tumour near his brainstem. So we used the social care system here in the UK and I have had my life blessed by friends and family members with disabilities – some very serious, some what you might consider minor.

My son died, so now, when I’m around somebody with a tracheotomy, for example, breathing through a tube or being fed through a tube, it feels like a bit of a homecoming for me. It makes me happy and sad. So I can’t say how much enough, how much this movie means to me personally. I’m ecstatic for it to get out there for so many reasons.

“I didn’t know about Judy Heumann before. I had lots of friends with disabilities, but my crash course in navigating the world as the parent of someone disabled happened in this country. So what’s good is a lot of people are going to learn about Judy Heumann for the first time through this film. And it’s never too late. Judy’s the figurehead of the movement, and rightfully so. She was a powerhouse. But she was one foot soldier in quite a battalion that led all these people – disabled and able-bodied – taking over federal buildings, breaking the law through sustained, peaceful protests.

“And they were so smart. When the government cut the phone lines to a building filled with disabled people, sleeping without the special beds designed for their bodies and without their carers in many cases – how monstrous! But it didn’t stop them. They started communicating using sign language from the windows! And interpreters would pass messages on to the press. It’s staggering what they did. 

“And I want people to do what people in this movie did. In a time of global turmoil, people are still only doing 10% of what they could be doing. Voting, for example, is important. But it is less important than direct nonviolent action. Voting is less important than being a dues-paying, meeting-attending member of a union. We have to vote. But if that’s all you’re doing, you might as well just roll over. Because democracy doesn’t just happen once every four years or every general election.  

“The best protest to go to is one that’s small, sparsely attended. I remember one for Royal College of Nurses a few years ago. It was raining, which depressed turnout. But I went. I got wet. It was physically unpleasant. This was not the big protest that gets on TV, but it’s the people who are keeping the pilot light going. I’ve done a lot of marches and rallies, in particular for nurses. Maybe in second place, teachers. And then railway workers, the RMT.

But because of my personal story with my son, I feel best positioned to help in the realm of health and social care. Whereas if I speak after Mick Lynch at an RMT rally, people are like, ‘Hey, why is he talking?’ Because the best public speakers are union organisers. They are outrageously good communicators.

Read more:

• Actor and activist Rob Delaney on giving money to the poor, giving Starmer a chance and Deadpool
• Rob Delaney: ‘Money is great. It should be handed out Robin Hood-style to poor people all day long’
• Then Barbara Met Alan – a revolutionary love story

“In this film, I play a freshman senator who was won over by Judy Heumann and lean on [Joseph] Califano, played by Mark Ruffalo, who is sort of equivalent to the secretary of health. So I play an ally of the protesters. A cool dude. An honour to play him. And they pushed and they pushed. And that’s why we do it. You never quit. You never yield an inch. 

“Mark Ruffalo himself is a wonderful human. He is amazing to act opposite, because he’s in the position that he is and has the career he does for a reason. It was quite something to have his anger focused at me in a scene. It felt like a real privilege, watching a master at work. 

“People call me an actor / activist. But I don’t feel like you can call yourself an activist until you’ve been arrested at least twice. People call me an activist, and I’m like, I’m just a guy who writes funny jokes most of the time. But Mark is a true activist and inspiration. I wish more people would take a page from his book – he isn’t afraid to speak from his heart in defence of people who need it. 

“In any coalition, you’re going to have people who are downtrodden and shit upon by various groups and cohorts. And if your coalition is going to work, you’re going to also need millionaires or famous people. So Mark Ruffalo is a gorgeous class traitor. I really admire him. I am proud to be in the same profession as him. I’m proud to act opposite him. And I look to him as an example of how to operate in the world when you’ve been temporarily given some money or fame. So I cannot endorse or support him more. Massive thumbs up to Mark and all that he does, both on screen and off.

“And I can’t trumpet what Ruth Madeley did as an actor loud enough. I am mindboggled by what she did. I’m going to try not to cry here, but it was beautiful to be in the same room as her. It would be really easy to be saccharine, if that’s the right word, when you’re playing someone who did their most famous work 50 years ago. It would be easy to sanctify them. But Ruth and Siân worked together courageously to create a performance where Judy is annoying sometimes; she’s headstrong or unpleasant. And victory is what that is – not having to go, ‘Look how wonderful I am’, but letting her be a fully formed human with foibles. 

“If you take anything from this film, it’s that direct action gets the goods. Don’t sit around hoping another world is possible. You have to build it by hand. That is, in my opinion, the message of this film.”   

Being Heumannis in cinemas now and on Apple TV from 13 November 

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