LOS ANGELES – Hollywood is the land of dreams, but success is hard to come by even if you’re able bodied, so imagine building a career with a disability. 

Danny Woodburn is a working Hollywood actor with over 180 credits. He got his start working as a stand-in for child actors, but his big break came when guest starring on Seinfeld as Kramer’s feisty friend. 

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“It’s so out of reach, the idea of being a successful actor,” said Woodburn. “But you know, I wanted to be a part of that entertainment world and when I found that I could make my friends laugh, or my mom laugh or my brothers laugh, I thought this is a road that I should travel down.”

After growing up watching Marx Brothers movie marathons in Philadelphia, Woodburn moved to L.A. almost 30 years ago to pursue his dream. Now, he’s helping other performers with disability find their role of a lifetime by serving on the Executive Steering Committee of ReelAbilities, a film festival dedicated to promoting artistic expressions of people with disabilities. 

“Telling stories is a way that we gather in the community,” said Woodburn. “And when you don’t have representations of people with disability on film and television, then we don’t get to tell their story.”

The way Woodburn tells it, in all likelihood we all know someone with a disability. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19 percent of Americans have one, whether it’s physical or mental. But the problem in Hollywood is they usually hire able-bodied actors, which leaves them with few opportunities.    

“We need to move forward as a society and if we keep sugar coating disability by showing able-bodied actors playing disabled characters than we're not really getting a real sense of disability as part of society,” said Woodburn.

In the Academy’s history, 27 roles have won the Oscar for portraying characters with a disability, but only two actors that actually have one have won. Ironically, Woodburn credits #OscarsSoWhite for helping to bring disability into the diversity conversation, but inclusion is still a challenge that’s only now starting to change. 

“Only now are we starting to change the landscape in this industry and only now is the industry recognizing the value of telling these stories,” said Woodburn. “We just have to give opportunities to these people.”

Disability is just a different ability.

ReelAbilities Film Festival plays Oct 25-27th at Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk. Feature films include The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Drummer and The Keeper, Suicide: The Ripple Effect, The R-Word, and Chained For Life.