In the latest series to premiere on Netflix’s 2025 schedule, Black Rabbit, Oscar winner Troy Kotsur plays Joe, the head of a crime family and one of the biggest bads. His performance is epic and intimidating, and it serves as a great opportunity to show American Sign Language. So, when I interviewed the director of Episodes 5 and 6 of this series, we discussed learning how to film ASL, how it impacted shots, and what he learned from working with this legendary actor.
According to director Ben Semanoff, there were meetings before they started filming about how to direct and work with deaf actors and ASL, and he noted that the process was “terrific” and “easy.” He then went into detail about how he worked with Kotsur and the translators on the set of this new streaming series. There were two of them, and the director told me what each of them did, starting off with:
