Modern Family casts transgender child actor
Jackson Millarker, 8, makes a TV first
Modern Family has cast a transgender child actor.
Eight-year-old Jackson Millarker will feature in the episode called A Stereotypical Day, which airs in the US tomorrow,
He will play Tom, a transgender boy who is friends with Cameron and Mitchell’s child Lily.
The director of the show, Ryan Case, tweeted to say that she is ‘so proud to have directed this amazing kid’, while Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Mitch, also said he was ‘super proud’.
Millarker is the thought to be first transgender child actor to appear in a major television series, and it marks a major breakthrough for him. Only last month, his family set up a crowdfunding campaign seeking $200 to boost his acting career.
The move follows calls for more transgender actors on screen. When Jeffrey Tambor collected his Emmy for Transparent last month, he said: ‘I would not be unhappy if I were the last cisgender male to play a female transgender on television,.’
Published: 27 Sep 2016
