[IMG:L]Ladies may always remember Ron Livingston as Berger from Sex and the City. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” joked the actor. With guys, it’s either slackers quoting Office Space, or barflies telling him he’s money. “Swingers is still definitely out there. The real test to me is to see if the kids, new generations find Swingers and find that it speaks to them.”
Livingston‘s latest role is in a story that perhaps should be better known, but is not. Music Within tells the story of Richard Pimental, who created the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is the law that requires such accommodations as wheelchair ramps and metal bars in larger bathroom stalls, to assist the differently abled.
An aspiring public speaker, Pimental was rejected for a college scholarship, so signed up for the GI Bill. In Vietnam, an explosion gave him a debilitating hearing condition where he heard constant ringing but was deaf to the normal range of human speech. Here is the rest of Pimental’s story, through the version portrayed by Livingston in the film:
The army declined to pay for a speech degree because they deemed it impractical given Pimental’s condition: “That seemed to me as being something that was kind of fundamentally unfair,” said Livingston, “and really, for me, that’s kind of the crux of the movie.”
In rehab, Pimental met Art Honeyman, whose cerebral palsy made him incomprehensible to most, but happened to hit the registers where Pimental could understand. “Because of his cerebral palsy, Art has to strain,” the actor explained. “He’s got to put a lot of effort into speaking so that he can make any sound at all. In the course of it, there’s a very low pushed sound and there’s a very high, breathy, raspy sound that almost cancels out. For a normal listener, it’s so confusing to hear those sounds on top of each other that nobody can make any sense of what Art says.”
“Richard, because of his particular hearing damage can only hear the very low register. Not only can he not hear any of the distracting top noises, but because Art has to work so hard to force the lower sounds out, it actually makes it audible within Richard’s range. So they had this crazy coincidence that Richard is the only guy in the world that can understand Art, and Art’s the only guy in the world that Richard can understand. From that moment on, the two of them were basically inseparable.”
In the ’70s, employers were not required to give the disabled equal consideration, so most just chose not to hire them at all. Pimental went to work securing jobs for Veterans. However, he still chased ladies with Art, and it’s that human quality which keeps the tale from becoming preachy, boring or weighed down by its socio-political implications.
What sold Livingston was that fact that at its heart the film is “about a couple of guys that had sort of been written off, about a couple guys that were told by life that their lives were over and that they weren’t really worth anything. Instead of accepting it, they said, ‘We don’t believe that. If that’s what the world thinks of us, then we’re going to change the world so that the world doesn’t think that about us anymore.’ Then they actually went and did it. To me, it’s just a great underdog story and it’s a great buddy film.”
Also in the ’70s, there was such a thing as an Ugly Law, which forbade people with certain disabilities, like Art’s cerebral palsy, to appear in public before “normal people.” Art and Richard were kicked out of a pancake house for disturbing the customers with their mere presence.
“I had no idea that we had so-called Ugly Laws,” said Livingston. “I thought that was made up, because there was no way it could possibly be true. I was assured that in fact it was true and that it had actually happened to Richard Pimental and Art Honeyman. It was in fact the moment that changed Richard’s life because it kind of defined who he was going to be and what he was going to do.”
In his work with employers, Pimental wrote manuals on how they should make accommodations for disabilities. This ultimately inspired the Congressional bill which was only passed in 1990, and went into affect in 1992.
“It’s absolutely amazing that it’s something that took that long to happen,” marveled the actor. “It’s really I think a testament to what a great job these guys did in making it happen. It seems like it’s been around forever. It seems like it should have been around forever. The way in which it’s affected the rest of us is it’s been easy. They’re really not asking for that much. Richard said ‘It’s the battle that we’ve won, and we’re the only ones who noticed that we won it.’”
In 2006, Livingston went to work figuring out how to portray Pimental in the film.
“You have to get the spirit of the guy. You have to get the things that were important to him. Then over and above him at all, you have to get what is universal out of that to everybody. I’m not making this movie just for Richard to watch. Richard was there. He knows what happens. He knows the story. You have to tell a story that’s going to relate to the person that’s sitting there in the audience who doesn’t know Richard, will probably never meet Richard and may not necessarily care but wants to know how this story relates to my life out here in the audience with my popcorn.”
The Americans with Disabilities Act is up for renewal in Congress this year. Livingston sais he hopes the Music Within can help ensure its survival. “The Americans with Disabilities act is up actually for extension this year and I’m kind of proud that they’re going to show the movie in Washington to members of Congress before they vote on it again.”
