On Casting Katie Leclerc

Lizzy Weiss: In terms of casting Katie, she's hard of hearing. She's not deaf like her character. And it was just really important to me that the character feel and sound more deaf than Katie is. So once we know we have to have Katie Leclerc -- she pops off the screen. She's a wonderful actress. She's beautiful. That she looks like Lea Thompson is a huge bonus. We asked her to put on a deaf accent because having a deaf accent is part of the experience of being distanced from someone deaf at first and feeling uncomfortable, and I really wanted her biological family to feel nervous around her and to have to get over it all. That's what the show is about, is putting things out there that aren't normally talked about. And so we asked her to put on a deaf accent like you would put on a British accent or a Southern accent. And Katie can tell you she worked with people to get that accent exactly right.