Maisie Sly's father on why her Oscars success could be the turning point for deaf people everywhere

Maisie Sly, a profoundly deaf six-year-old from Swindon, has just played the lead role in an Oscar-winning film. “There aren’t many six-year-olds who can say that,” smiles her father Gilson from the family’s Airbnb in Glendale, a residential area of Los Angeles. “And I don’t think there are many six-year-old girls that strutted the red carpet like Maisie did.” Yesterday, Maisie spent the day with her family at Disneyland - a much-needed pause from the interviews and press engagements that have peppered her first ever trip abroad. 

Because on Sunday night Maisie, and the rest of the world, watched former Hollyoaks star Rachel Shenton accept her Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for The Silent Child. “I made a promise to our six-year-old lead actress that I’d sign this speech,” Shenton told the audience, winning the hearts of viewers across the world, and making Maisie a global sensation overnight.

Maisie sat in the audience alongside A-listers like Meryl Streep, Salma Hayek and Gary Oldman, with her parents Gilson and Elizabeth, who are both deaf. The 20-minute short tells the story of a profoundly deaf girl born to hearing parents, who lives in silence until a support worker - played by Shenton - teaches her to sign.

After Shenton’s late father Geoff went profoundly deaf following chemotherapy when she was 12, she went on to become a qualified British Sign Language Interpreter and ambassador for the National Deaf Children’s Society.

“Our movie is about a deaf child being born into a world of silence,” Shenton explained in her speech. “This is happening. Millions of children all over the world live in silence and face communication barriers and particularly access to education.” 

Shenton and her fiance, Chris Overton, who directed the film, auditioned over 100 young deaf girls for the role, having put out a casting call on a Facebook page on various forums within the deaf community.

But the pair didn’t just find a child star; in the Slys, they had a fourth-generation deaf family who are hugely active within the community, and passionate about the issues explored in the film.

“Of course, it’s wonderful that we got this Oscar,” says Gilson. “But what means most to us, as a deaf family, is getting our message out to a worldwide audience.” Maisie, her older brother Jack, eight, and younger sister Chloe, who is four, all communicate using British Sign Language (BSL). Maisie’s great grandparents and grandparents on her mother Elizabeth’s side are all deaf, and the entire family relocated from Cornwall to Swindon so the children could attend Red Oaks Primary School, a mainstream school with specialist support.

“When I read the script for the first time, I got goosebumps,” says Gilson, 34. “Deafness is not a learning disability. With the right support, a deaf child can achieve the same as a hearing child. Deafness is a communication issue.” Gilson would like to see British Sign Language offered on the national curriculum. “Sign language isn’t just for deaf people,” he says. “Sign language is a communication tool, and when the world communicates better, the world gets better.”

The film resonates so powerfully because Gilson, who was born profoundly deaf and didn’t learn to sign until he was 20 years old, struggled in school. Gilson’s parents learned he was deaf when he was three, and after enjoying primary school, he struggled at secondary school. “I still remember the careers advisor telling me that all the things I wanted to be when I grew up - a fireman, a police officer, an army officer - were closed to me,” he says.

Academically he did well, getting 11 GCSEs, but he felt socially isolated, confused and depressed, and became a troubled teenager. Then, aged 20, he attended a football match for a deaf football team in Plymouth. “I didn’t really watch the football match, because there was this gorgeous young lady there, Elizabeth,” he says, smiling at his wife across the apartment, where she is making Jack breakfast.

Elizabeth’s brother was the captain of the team. “I wanted to talk to her, and that’s when I found out she was profoundly deaf.”

Having learned to speak and lip-read, Gilson could communicate well with the hearing community, but not being able to sign cut him off from the deaf community. “Learning BSL, in order to speak to Elizabeth, was the best decision I ever made,” says Gilson. “Learning to sign made me look into myself and think, ‘I’m deaf, and I’m fine with that’. From then on I embraced the language, the culture and the deaf community, and I’ve never looked back.” 

Today Gilson, 34, is a Youth Participation Officer at Gloucestershire Deaf Association, and a powerful advocate of sign language, passionate about supporting young deaf people, and relieving the isolation he felt at school. He points out that over nine million people in the UK have a hearing loss, equating to one in seven people.

“We have languages like French, German, Spanish and Russian on the national curriculum, so why isn’t sign language offered, so you can communicate with a huge number of people in your own country?” he asks.

It’s true that there is a history of oppression and misunderstanding around British Sign Language (BSL); as late as the 1980s, the sign language used by the deaf community in Britain was dismissed as gestures and pantomime, and the hearing parents of deaf children were advised not to allow their children to use signs or gesture.

“There’s a misconception that learning to sign prevents deaf children from developing lip-reading skills and speech,” explains Gilson. British Sign Language has its own linguistics and grammar, and a whole culture and heritage around it, but it wasn’t until 2003 that BSL was finally recognised as an official minority language in the UK.

And it’s a beautiful language. “If you ever see people arguing in sign language, it’s captivating, with powerful facial expressions and arms all over the place,” he laughs. “And at the other end of the spectrum, when you see someone talking about something they’re really passionate about, it really comes across, because they’re using their face and their body as well to get the message across.”

The cast and crew of The Silent Child all hope that the film will correct some misconceptions about sign language, encourage the hearing community to consider learning to sign, or at the very least, raise awareness about the issues facing deaf people today. “For example, when you meet a deaf person, don’t freeze, that’s awful,” says Gilson. “Never say to them, ‘oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell you later’, because that’s completely demoralising. Don’t look at us curiously if we crane our necks or tilt our heads to get our good ears closer. Don’t cover your mouth. And don’t assume that lipreading is easy. It’s really hard work - I have to first guess the context of what you’re saying, then find word that fits into that sentence, and then fill in the gaps. It’s tiring.”

Ultimately, The Silent Child’s message is that there’s so much more to communication than speech. “I just look forward to sitting down with Maisie at 12 years old, when she can fully understand the enormity of what she’s done,” he says. “She could be the face of change.”