Troy Kotsur

Troy Michael Kotsur is an American actor born on July 24, 1968, in Mesa, Arizona, the largest suburb of Phoenix. Born deaf, Kotsur was nine months old when his parents, JoDee and Leonard Stephen Kotsur, discovered he was deaf and learned American Sign Language so the family could communicate. His father, Len Kotsur, served as Mesa's police chief. Kotsur first developed an interest in acting while attending the Phoenix Day School for the Deaf, and his drama teacher at Westwood High School later encouraged him to participate in the senior variety show, where a pantomime skit he performed motivated him to pursue theater professionally. Following high school, he briefly interned at KTSP-TV before enrolling at Gallaudet University from 1987 to 1989 to study theater, television, and film.

Kotsur left Gallaudet after receiving an offer from the National Theatre of the Deaf, with whom he toured for two years performing in two plays, marking his acting debut in the late 1980s. In 1994, he joined Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles, where he acted in and directed multiple productions, taking on roles including Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, Lenny in Of Mice and Men, and Prince Hamlet in Ophelia.

His Broadway career grew directly from a Deaf West Theatre production of the 1985 musical Big River, which he joined in 2001 alongside hearing actor Lyle Kanouse. The two shared the role of Huckleberry Finn's father Pap, with Kotsur signing and Kanouse speaking and singing. The production's success led to engagements at the Mark Taper Forum and ultimately a Broadway revival in 2003 under the Roundabout Theater Company and Deaf West at the American Airlines Theater in New York City. During this period, Kotsur also held a recurring role on Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye and served as an ASL specialist for that series.

In 2012, Kotsur starred in Cyrano, a co-production of Deaf West Theatre and The Fountain Theatre directed by Stephen Sachs, which premiered in April of that year. The performance earned him a nomination for the Ovation Award for Best Actor in a Play. His television debut had come earlier, in a 2001 episode of Strong Medicine, and his film debut followed in the 2007 thriller The Number 23. In 2013, he directed and starred in No Ordinary Hero: The SuperDeafy Movie, which premiered at the Heartland Film Festival. He subsequently starred in Deborah LaVine's 2016 independent feature Wild Prairie Rose, a film that won the Jimmy Stewart Legacy Award at the Heartland International Film Festival.

Kotsur gained broader recognition through the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, which began in 2019. He was originally brought on to develop the sign language used by the Tusken Raiders, and after the production team learned through his manager that he was also an actor, he was cast as the lead Tusken Raider. His most celebrated work came with the 2021 comedy drama film CODA, in which he played a deaf father to a hearing teenage daughter. Director Sian Heder had first seen his work in Deaf West productions of Our Town and Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo before casting him. His performance in CODA earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Gotham Independent Film Award for Outstanding Supporting Performance, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. His Oscar win made him the first male deaf actor, and the second deaf actor overall after Marlee Matlin, to win an Academy Award for acting. He also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role. In 2025, Kotsur appeared in Foundation as Preem Palver, leader of the Second Foundation.

Kotsur is married to actress Deanne Bray. The couple's daughter, Kyra Monique Kotsur, was born on September 8, 2005. Kotsur is Catholic.