Interview: Audible star Amaree McKenstry on Deaf mental health and Deaflympics challenge

While Apple TV film CODA is collecting a whole host of awards for its coming-of-age story of a hearing teen born to Deaf adults, another lesser-known release – Netflix’s Audible – is also vying for success at this year’s Oscars.

Ahead of the ceremony on 27 March, The Limping Chicken’s Liam O’Dell sat down with star Amaree McKenstry to talk Deaf mental health, representation and his hopes of winning big at the Deaflympics.

Somehow the simple question ‘how are you’ is the first thing I ask Amaree McKenstry over Zoom on Wednesday evening, but it feels right. The young Deaf adult, who is the main focal point of the Oscar-nominated doc Audible, gets a lot off his chest in the Netflix short – from his complicated relationship with his father, to his grief over the suicide of former teammate, Teddy.

He tells me there’s a lot going on in a “very busy” month – comprising interviews, working out and preparations for the Oscars later this month, which he describes as an “honour”.

“Well, to be honest with you, I never considered that [Audible] would even be nominated for an Oscar,” he admits to me, “I thought this was just about exposing people to the Deaf community, to the culture, creating more equality and raising more awareness.

“But my friends had reached out to me and told me that this is nominated for an Oscar and Matt, the director contacted me, the producer contacted me, and it just kept getting brought up and it’s shocking,” Amaree continues, “I am just amazed, to be honest, I never even considered it. I’m still humble, of course, as always, and we’ll see what happens on 27 March.”

It all began with a questionnaire, asking students of Maryland School for the Deaf for their thoughts on a range of topics. Audible’s hearing director, Matt Ogens, tells a virtual Q&A audience later that evening that he “wouldn’t have guessed” that the “shy, quiet kid” he saw a year before would go on to become homecoming king a year later.

Amaree explains: “During my process of answering [Matt’s questions], I just became more candid and I was more authentic,” he says, “because I was thinking about the impact of how many deaf individuals struggle and have had a lot of frustrations. Through being prohibited from signing, not having access to language and never quite having equality.

“I really want there to be equality,” Amaree continues. “I don’t identify as disabled; I am a normal person, I just use sign language. So I felt it was important to be authentic about my experience.”

We are all human beings, he tells me, as our conversation moves to Deaf mental health and Teddy’s tragic passing. Alongside sign language deprivation and a lack of equality, the impact of mental health issues on Deaf people in the US is significant, with a 2019 study finding that the rate of diagnosed depression or anxiety disorder was higher and occurred at an earlier age in Deaf adults compared to hearing adults. Add to this the fact that Mental Health America reports Black and African American people are more likely to experience chronic and persistent mental health conditions, and it certainly appears as though Black Deaf people in the US experience greater mental health challenges.

How important was it for Amaree to explore mental health in Audible in light of these challenges? “I really do believe that there’s not a big difference,” he replies. “Yes, there are more serious frustrations and anger, or struggles and challenging emotions. All people do have challenges with their emotions, but sometimes people do have better access to resources to help them cope with that.

“Even for any Black person – any Black Deaf person – it’s still very important to care about our mental health and that does come first,” he adds. “I mean, technically, though, I do feel that we are all humans and that there is no difference. I mean, we do have different skin types, but our blood is the same. We all have hearts that are pumping our blood. We’re all human.”

It’s an idea of togetherness which certainly shines through in Audible, as Amaree’s American football continues to process the loss of Teddy, and their first loss in sixteen seasons of the sport.

I ask him how the team helped him process the passing of his friend. “Well, actually, that is such a wonderful point of, you know, having to take those feelings and putting them aside,” he says, before telling me about his close friend Miguel. “We grew up with each other, and anytime that there were problems with school, or with family, or in relationships, he always would put it on the back burner until there was time for him to address it later.

“So for him, when he saw me mourning the loss of my friend, we all were able to come together and talk about it,” he goes on to add. “We wanted to take the win for Teddy and we wanted to be able to win for him and use that as an accomplishment for him.

“We started as freshmen together with [Teddy] and so it was an honour to [do that]. There were some of the players who didn’t know Teddy very well, but within the Football League, the team, we all knew Teddy and so it brought us together,” he says.

While memories of Teddy brought the Orioles together, it was Audible which helped bring Amaree and his father closer.

“After the recording of the documentary was done, [dad] finally came to me and apologised,” he reveals to me. “He said, ‘I’m sorry for not being fully engaged’, and I was feeling some kind of way until I got to see the release of the movie. And then I was like, ‘Oh, I get it. He was ready to come to me.’

“I still was holding on to the past,” Amaree continues. “I had not let go of that and I needed to focus on a solution.

“I think my father was able to really see me and look up to me and say, ‘Wow, you turned out better. I was preaching to you a lot about religion, and the church’. Our relationship is a lot greater now,” he confirms. “It’s healthy.”

And although Amaree’s left Maryland School for the Deaf, his love of sports hasn’t left him.

“I found out that in Minnesota, there’s wrestling tryouts for the Olympics,” he explains. “It’s a freestyle and the Greco-Roman wrestling. So that was an opportunity that piqued my interest and I thought, ‘shoot, why not?’”

He had every reason to give it a try, too, as he reveals that he was a champion wrestler for the Deaf tournament in 2020, in his senior year.

“So this was in St. Paul,” he tells me, “I went through the process and I was beat for the Greco-Roman wrestling, so I lost that. But you know, that was strange for me because you can’t take them down – it’s everything from the chest up. It’s almost like you’re hugging them, and you can’t really pull him down.

“However, with the freestyle, I pinned him down. I was able to beat him right away, I got the TKO [technical knockout] and pinned him,” he adds, in a performance which meant he made the Deaflympics team for the freestyle, as well as the Greco-Roman.

“That’s a great honour that I’m working towards right now,” Amaree says of the Deaflympics, due to take place in Brazil in May. “Remember: I was never really motivated to do any wrestling, but you never know what comes up in your life.”

Audible is available to watch now on Netflix.

Photos: Netflix.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.