Academy award-winning actress Marlee Matlin has tapped three fellow deaf actors, Stephanie Nogueras, Joshua Castille, and Lauren Ridloff, to star in the episode she’s directing for the upcoming Fox anthology drama series Accused. Other cast members for the show include Megan Boone, Aaron Ashmore, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Jean-Michele Le Gal.
Based on the BBC series of the same name, Accused was developed by Howard Gordon, who served as an EP on Homeland. It’ll open on the accused in a courtroom, with nothing known about their crime or how they ended up on trial. According to Deadline, “Accused depicts how an ordinary person gets caught up in an extraordinary situation, ultimately revealing how one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back.”
The lead role in the episode is Ava, played by Nogueras. She’s a deaf woman who becomes a surrogate for a couple, Jenny (Boone) and Max (Ashmore). Eventually, she’ll end up committing a crime of advocacy and protection. Ava’s boyfriend KJ will be played by Castille, Rubin-Vega will be Ava’s mother, while Le Gal and Ridloff will play Ava’s public defenders. Short-story and novelist writer Maile Meloy wrote the episode.
Accused, co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Fox Entertainment, received a straight-to-series order last May for the 2022-2023 broadcast season. It is executive produced by All3Media America’s Jacob Cohen-Holmes, Jimmy McGovern, Sita Williams, Roxy Spencer, and Louise Pedersen for All3Media International. In addition, Gordon, Gansa, Shore, Glenn Geller, Erin Gunn, John Weber, and Frank Siracusa also serve as executive producers.
More About The Cast
Accused This wouldn’t be the first time that Nogueras has worked with Matlin. There were both on The Magicians, playing the young and old versions of a character named Harriet. However, Nogueras only appeared in one episode while Matlin was in eight. Besides that, other shows Nogueras has been on include Killing It, The Good Fight, and Criminal Minds.
Castille is a deaf performance artist who has worked in several venues, ranging from small community theatres to Broadway to the Tony Awards stage. He has also appeared in commercials, short films, and music videos, besides making cameo appearances on TV shows and network programming.
Ridloff played the lead role in the Broadway revival of Children Of A Lesser God, a play whose film adaption was what Matlin won an Oscar for. Ridloff herself received a Tony nomination. Besides that, she was also a series regular on AMC’s The Walking Dead. She became the first Deaf superhero in the MCU with Eternals, which also starred Angelina Jolie, Jumail Nanjani, and Richard Madden.
Boone starred opposite James Spader on the NBC drama series The Blacklist, which was her last significant television role. In film, Boone was also in My Bloody Valentine 3D alongside Jensen Ackles and recently appeared in Barry Jenkins’ limited series Underground Railroad, which was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Colson Whitehead.
Currently, Ashmore is starring in Netflix’s Locke & Key, based on the comic series by Joe Hill. He has also had lead roles in Skyped, Killjoys, and Smallville, where he played a character named Jimmy Olsen. He’s also made appearances on Ginny and Georgia, Veronica Mars, and Ransom, among other things.
Le Gal worked on Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz opposite Michelle Williams and Seth Rogan, Anon opposite Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried, and served as a series regular on Nickelodeon’s Max & Shred. Le Gal will also appear in the upcoming Buzzfeed/Kionsgare 1UP and in the series La Petite Maraisse.
Rubin-Vega, a Tony-nominated actor, most recently was seen starring as Daniela in the Jon Chu-directed movie In The Heights. She also starred in and produced the independent features film Allswell, which has recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Besides that, she recently wrapped production on two pilots, Olga Dies Dreaming for Hulu and Dangerous Moms for NBC. She also voices a role in the A24 animated series Hazbin Hotel.