Episode 60: Danny J. Gomez – Acting in Hollywood with a Spinal Cord Injury

It’s not every day you see an actor with a spinal cord injury on the big screen, but thanks to actors like Danny J, Gomez, a paraplegic from Los Angeles by way of New Orleans, it’s becoming more common and that’s a great thing for the disability community.

In this episode, we chat with Danny not only about his acting career, which began in 2018, just two years after his spinal cord injury, but his journey, including his injury story and how he was able to secure an acting scholarship from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. His acting credits include NBC’s “New Amsterdam,” “NCIS: Hawai’i,” “The Deadline” (a short film) and multiple commercials.

He also shares what it’s like working on-set in a wheelchair, getting his accessibility needs met, auditioning as someone with a disability and his experiences creating films for the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, which highlights shorts made and acted by people with disabilities that challenges disability stereotypes. Watch the video version of the episode here.

Episode runtime is 30 minutes.

— Follow Danny

— ‘The Deadline’ short film

— Rocky Monologue

— Easterseals Disability Film Challenge