Ruth Madeley on playing Judy Heumann, the activist who fought to make the world accessible

Ruth Madeley likes to think she was determined before she was born. “I think I was stubborn before I even arrived,” she says, laughing.

It’s a quality the British actress, who was diagnosed with spina bifida while still in the womb, recognises in Judy Heumann, the American disability rights activist she plays in the new film Being Heumann.

Heumann spent her life pushing back against the barriers that kept disabled people from participating fully in society. When she found something worth fighting for, Madeley says, she was “like a dog with a bone”.

Madeley knows something about that determination herself. Growing up, she watched her mother fight for her, just as Heumann’s mother had done for her daughter. Over time, Madeley began to find her own voice.

“There’s a lot of life experience that comes with having a disability,” she tells The National. “You can tap into so many great emotions when you’re acting.”

That experience has informed a career that has taken her from British television to the lead role in a film about a woman whose work changed the lives of disabled people around the world.

Madeley, who is from Greater Manchester, earned a Bafta nomination for the 2015 drama Don’t Take My Baby and went on to appear in series including Years and Years and Doctor Who. Now, in Being Heumann, she leads an ensemble cast alongside Mark Ruffalo and Dylan O’Brien.

Directed by Sian Heder, whose film Coda won the Oscar for best picture, Being Heumann focuses on a defining chapter in its subject’s life: the 1977 occupation of a federal building in San Francisco by disability rights activists.

Heumann and her fellow protesters were demanding that the US government implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibited discrimination against disabled people by organisations receiving federal funding. The law had been passed four years earlier, but the regulations needed to enforce it remained unsigned. Following the protests, those regulations were signed on April 28, 1977.

Show caption: Ruth Madeley portrays Heumann during the 1977 sit-in that he…

For Madeley, the chance to introduce Heumann to people unfamiliar with her work carried a particular responsibility.

“It was the biggest privilege of my life to be trusted with her movie,” she says. “For me, disability and determination go hand in hand, and I think that could be said for Judy as well.”

Heumann’s work extended far beyond the US. In 2016, while serving as a senior adviser at the US Department of State, she spoke at a UN discussion on the rights of women and girls with disabilities, convened by the UAE and US missions alongside UN Women and World Enabled.

Heumann emphasised the need for women and girls with disabilities to be included in conversations about the policies that affected them.

The following year, the UAE adopted the term “people of determination” as part of a national strategy addressing the needs and rights of people with disabilities.

For Madeley, portraying Heumann began with finding her voice in a more literal sense. The actress spent months speaking with a Brooklyn accent, a change she says helped her to get closer to the activist.

“Judy was such a proud woman from Brooklyn, and Brooklyn was such a big part of her identity,” she says. “Once I’d kind of nailed the accent, that unlocked a lot for me.”

There was also the question of how to portray the way Heumann moved. Both women used wheelchairs, but their physical experiences were different. Madeley says she can manage a few steps, while Heumann, who contracted polio as a child, could not walk and had little core strength.

Madeley wanted to capture the freedom Heumann had when she was able to move independently in her wheelchair. In the film, she is often on the go, talking on the phone or heading from one place to another. Away from it, she could rely on other people for assistance.

One scene shows Heumann waiting to use the bathroom because her attendant is late. Portraying that moment accurately was as integral to Madeley's performance as capturing the activist’s larger personality.

“I think that was really important for us to show on screen – the realities of having to rely on other people when your body doesn’t work in a certain way,” she says.

Heumann died in 2023, aged 75, after a career that included advocating for disabled people’s rights in the US and internationally. Madeley hopes the film will help more people discover that work, while offering something to viewers who may recognise their own experiences on screen.

“So often when you have a disability, you can feel incredibly isolated,” she says. “I would definitely just want to encourage people to reach out and know that you’re not on your own.”

The work Heumann began continues, Madeley says, and she hopes films such as Being Heumann can help challenge perceptions.

“The work’s not done, and I’m very, very much committed to carrying on Judy’s legacy.”

Being Heumann premieres Friday on Apple TV globally