EXCLUSIVE: Madeline Delp (Ballroom), Rob Delaney (Dying for Sex), and Ray Fisher (The Piano Lesson) are new additions to Being Heumann, Apple‘s civil rights drama based on the bestselling memoir from disability activist Judy Heumann.
The trio joins previously announced stars Ruth Madeley, Mark Ruffalo and Dylan O’Brien in the cast. Delp will play disability rights activist Kitty Cone, with Fisher as the Black Panther Party’s Chuck Jackson, and Delaney as Congressman Miller. The latter character is presumably modeled off of George Miller, who played a key role in supporting Heumann and her fight for disability rights during the 1970s.
Being Heumann follows Heumann as she leads over a hundred disabled people to take over the San Francisco Federal Building, kicking off a 28-day sit-in in 1977. The protestors quickly form a tightly bound community, refusing to leave until the government enforces section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which required all federal spaces to become accessible.
In the film from CODA Oscar winner Siân Heder, Madeley plays the title role, with Ruffalo as Joseph Califano, the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter, and O’Brien as Evan White, one of the few reporters covering the San Francisco disability rights protests at the heart of the story.
Hailing from Apple Studios, Being Heumann will be directed by Heder, under her overall deal with Apple, from her script written with Rebekah Taussig. David Permut (Hacksaw Ridge, Face/Off) will produce for Permut Presentations alongside Kevin Walsh (Napoleon, Manchester by the Sea), whose The Walsh Company is under an overall deal with Apple. Heumann’s managers John W. Beach and Kevin Cleary of Gravity Squared Entertainment will also serve as producers, with Heumann, Being Heumann co-author Kristen Joiner, Diana Pokorny, and and Jim Lebrecht exec producing.
Delp is an unrepped actress, model, and disability advocate who will be seen starring in the upcoming indie musical drama Ballroom.
Most recently seen in Dying for Sex, Bad Monkey, and Deadpool & Wolverine, Delaney is repped by UTA, Kara Baker at Avalon, and Leigh Brecheen and Stephen Breimer of Brecheen Feldman Breimer.
Coming off turns in the Rebel Moon films from Zack Snyder and Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson, Fisher will next be seen starring in Ben Affleck’s Netflix thriller Animals and is repped by Paradigm and Entertainment 360.