Out of My Mind Movie Interview: Phoebe-Rae Taylor Made the Seasoned Cast Better Actors
12The cast of Out of My Mind is stacked with wildly talented veteran actors, but it’s led by a complete newcomer, someone getting her very first acting credit with the film. It’s Phoebe-Rae Taylor, and she’s an absolute natural.
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, Out of My Mind focuses on 6th grader, Melody Brooks (Taylor). She’s an incredibly bright 12 year-old who loves fashion and watching Friends, but can’t reach her full potential due to the assumptions made about her by others. Melody has cerebral palsy, is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair. Due to her lack of verbal communication ability and presumed limited intellect, Melody attends school in a classroom for students with disabilities. However, when Katherine (Courtney Taylor), a postdoctoral candidate in education, meets Melody and immediately recognizes her lust for learning and limitless potential in general, she encourages Melody’s family and the school administration to have her join the mainstream 6th grade classroom.
Out of My Mind is a hugely heartwarming and inspiring coming-of-age tale about never letting someone else define your potential. As producer Peter Saraf explained in our production notes, “We were committed from the get-go to casting an actress with cerebral palsy to play the role of Melody. And we just did a massive outreach and using some of our partners from the disability community we spread as wide a net as we could.” That vast search resulted in the filmmaking team finding gold. Check out my conversation with Phoebe-Rae Taylor, Courtney Taylor, Rosemarie DeWitt, Luke Kirby, Judith Light, Michael Chernus, and director Amber Sealey at the Collider interview studio at Sundance 2024 brought to you by Film.io to hear all about what an exceptional collaborator partner Phoebe-Rae Taylor is, and why they think she has an especially bright future in this business.
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