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Disability often comes with connotations of tragedy and loss, but how do you miss something you never had? Due to a congenital birth defect, Katy Sullivan was born without legs. Formerly a Paralympic athlete, the bold actress and producer has appeared on television, film and in theatrical performances. With her creative partner Becca Flinn, Katy performs sketch comedy and is currently developing a television series called "Legs" that normalizes disability, treating it without sensation.

To view more of Becca and Katy's sketch comedy, visit SulliFlinn Productions YouTube page at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzRDXo8fFhcB9oYfQY4WRaQ


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Transcript
00:00My name is Katie Sullivan.
00:03I'm an actress, and I've worked as an actress forever.
00:06And I rarely get to play characters that are anything like me.
00:12I was born this way.
00:14I don't know any sensation different than the body I've got.
00:22Action!
00:23Got a big Cornhole Olympics competition coming up.
00:27We started creating sketches because we were getting frustrated waiting for other people to give us permission to be creative.
00:37Sammy!
00:38Geez, you're hard to live with.
00:39At some point, you realize we have ideas.
00:43We crack each other up.
00:45Even if no one ever sees it, at least we're being creative.
00:48The project that we were workshopping is told from the point of view of a character named Heidi.
00:53She is a woman who lives her life with a disability.
00:58If a character has a disability on a show, it tends to be either inspiring or tragic.
01:06Like, it's never just, I'm going to get milk.
01:09I'm not insulted when people say that I'm inspiring or that they want to come up and talk to me
01:15or whatever.
01:15But can you imagine if you just got up, threw your clothes on, and you just went to the grocery
01:23store,
01:23and a stranger came up to you and said,
01:26you are so inspiring for existing.
01:30It really does take away from anything else that you may have accomplished.
01:35That actually is inspiring.
01:38And maybe the fact that I've gotten to a place of being so comfortable in my own skin,
01:44and happy, genuinely happy from the inside out.
01:48Maybe they can read that.
01:50And maybe that's inspiring to them.
01:53Confidence.
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