Adam Pearson

Eugenics will always be a difficult issue to wrestle with.

Once I started thinking like them the bullies had won.

It's about the life you have, not the one you don't.

I used to stand outside the school gates in the morning, take a massive deep breath and let it happen. I knew what I was in for. It was continuous name-calling - the classic Elephant Man, freak.

I'd love to play Bond, but I would love to play a Bond villain too - who wouldn't?

Could someone like me become a film star? I don't see why not.

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by superheroes. I don't know if it was the good versus evil stories, the fact justice always prevailed or simply the fact that Batman will always be the coolest man on the planet.

You can get bogged down in, 'It's not fair. Why is life so cruel?' It doesn't solve anything.

There's a lot of fear around the unknown.

I have a genetic condition called Type 1 Neurofibromatosis. So it affects the 17th chromosome in the human genome. And it has a prevalency rating of 1 in every 2,300 births, which puts it just within the benchmarks for being classified as rare.

When you get the 'role model' label thrust on you, and it does get thrust on you, sometimes people think you're speaking for everyone. And I can only speak for myself.

Listen to disabled people and be kind to each other.

Everyone finds different things either funny or uncomfortable.

No matter what mindset you're in, if you're bullied at school, nothing makes it easy.

While I don't enjoy being looked at constantly, what I experience cannot be labelled as a disability hate crime. That is a more serious issue.

My parents are very much a 'heads down, let's get on with this' kind of family, so I don't think there was ever any crying or sleepless nights.

While I'm acutely aware that justice doesn't need a modifier and that not every bad thing that happens to me is a hate crime, being abused because of how you look is not - and will never be - okay.

I remember when I was at school. They put on a video of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and a kid shouted, 'We're watching Adam!' The teacher heard but did nothing.

Why are non-disabled people writing about disability without consultation? When that happens, the end result... you might get it right once, but 9 times out 10 it's going to be very inauthentic and inaccurate.

If I could talk to my younger self, I'd both give myself a slap and reassure myself that it's going really good in 2024, so just hang in there.

Banning words and subject matters for fear of upsetting people runs the risk of stifling conversation and halting social progress.

I'm liked, and luckily people seem to get on board with what I do.

Film baddies are often scarred, marked or have a condition of some kind. In 'James Bond' stories, the villain is always disabled or disfigured - these things are a reason for why they turned bad.

Disfigurement is so widely unrepresented in our media heavy culture it is little wonder people don't know how to react to it.

Normally there are three kinds of roles or tropes for us. We're either the villain because I have a disfigurement and I want to kill Batman or James Bond, or the victim like 'woe is me,' or the hero, because I have a disability but do regular stuff I'm somehow braver than the next guy. It's lazy writing.

We all have our own hang-ups and I think we should be supporting each other, not throwing abuse around like you're 15 and in the playground.

I'm like a duck. On the surface, I look cool and sleek and elegant. And underneath I'm kicking like mad.

I've always said, if you want to learn how to do something, find someone who does it better than you and just get in their way.

Once you're comfortable in your own skin and figure that out, and get to the point where you're like, 'It is who I am, like it or lump it,' and the people that matter don't mind and the people that mind don't matter, that's when you can really find your way.

I found out who I was by trying loads of things that I wasn't and by realizing the facade of trying to please people is equally as miserable as the loneliness.

I have no interest in mediocrity.

When it comes to the online world, how we behave and who we are digitally are one and the same thing and our actions in this space have real impact and consequences for people.

I've always been a campaigner, ever since I was a child. It sounds like an utter clich but it's in my DNA.

It's a duty to create a world where people like myself can thrive, without fear or anxiety - giving a voice back to the voiceless. Now I want to ensure that anyone with a visible difference like me can lead the lives they want without suffering abuse or prejudice.

Seen today, 'Heredity in Man' looks utterly abhorrent from both a moral and scientific perspective. It's terrifying to watch.

It's in the pub, when I'm having a pint of beer after a hard week of work that I feel at my most vulnerable and exposed. When people get drunk, they like to call me names.

Living with a facial disfigurement, in a busy city like London, means I am rarely invisible. Even something as simple as a train journey can turn into a gauntlet of stares, pointing and whispers.

I will always be eternally grateful to Jonathan Glazer and Scarlett Johansson because they took a real chance on an untrained kid from Croydon, who was probably quite a liability at the time, and gave me a break.

We all have good days and bad days.

If it wasn't for 'Under the Skin,' I would more than likely be in some kind of middle management job in marketing, and deeply frustrated.

A man once tried to rip my face off because he thought it was a mask.

There are two schools of thought here. On one side you have 'only disabled actors can play disabled roles' and over here you've got 'it's just acting mate, grow up' but the truth lies somewhere here in the middle of the bell curve.

I don't want to blanket ban all scars and disfigurements in films because that's going to be a very boring creative landscape and it's very restricting and I've got to work!

I think villains are fun roles to play. If it's cleverly written and there are other motives other than just sticking a scar on someone because there is no other way to portray evil.

I've met people from across the spectrum and I think film should be the same.

I think the cinema-going public are smart enough to separate fiction from reality but suspend their disbelief for long enough to be drawn in by good storytelling.

You sit in all these diversity meetings and you hear the same words over and over, and you can tell when someone's being genuine and means it and when they aren't, simply by the script you get handed.

I try to stay away from tropes, or if there is a trope there, I ensure that it's cleverly written and isn't just lazy and overly cliche. I think it's made me a smarter actor and a better businessman, because I'm also an activist and I know the game; I know motives.

I'm very picky with what I do.

Being happy isn't the same as being perfect - it's learning to live with imperfection.