He was 3 years old when a doctor uttered two words his family would never forget: cerebral palsy.
Roy Frank Mitte III was born on August 21, 1992, in Jackson, Mississippi. According to El Heraldo, Roy and Dyna Mitte adopted him when he was just a few weeks old, and he grew up alongside his sister, Lacianne. No one in that house knew where that diagnosis would take him.
In 2006, he moved to Hollywood. He was looking for roles where his disability could teach the public something. He started out as an extra, with small appearances on Hannah Montana.
In 2008, at 16, his big break came. He played Walter White Jr., the teenage son on Breaking Bad, a boy who also lived with cerebral palsy. The series ran until 2013 and put him in front of millions of people.
Then he did what almost no one does with fame: he used it to open the door for others. He was a spokesperson for the I AM PWD campaign and presented the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games for Channel 4. He asked for something very simple: “It’s time for disabled actors to be given roles as disabled characters”. A study he cited showed that 95% of those characters were played by actors without disabilities.
He also said: “I wouldn’t be where I am today without my disability”.
And he summed it up this way: “Disability is strength, knowledge, power and understanding”.
People who watched him grow up on screen saw a boy walking in his own way. He wanted them to see more: that way of walking could also be a banner.