Blessed With Support
Episode Summary
In this episode, Michele Uriarte-Beards shares her journey as the mother of actor and voiceover artist Miguel Gabriel. When Miguel showed early signs of speech and movement challenges, Michele navigated the uncertainties of finding the right support. Facing resistance—even from within her own family—she remained determined to help her son thrive. In addition to exploring various therapies, she found unexpected help in the theatre community, which not only provided Miguel with a creative outlet but also set him on a path to a professional acting career. Michele also reflects on Miguel’s experience with bullying—how those who once bullied him ultimately became his bodyguards. It’s a powerful parallel to his journey from struggling with speech to becoming a successful voiceover actor.
From This Episode
Watch Camera: https://linktr.ee/camerathemovie
Related episode of Wisdom Shared: Finding Voice Through a Camera with filmmaker Jay Silverman
Miguel’s Instagram: @officialmiguelgabriel
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The Wisdom Shared Team
Audio Engineering by Steve Heatherington of Good Podcasting Works
Co-Producer and Marketing Coordinator: Kayla Nelson
Production Assistant: Becki Leigh
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[00:00:00] Carole: Welcome to Wisdom Shared, where people on the front lines are the experts, and where connection inspires change. I am your host, Carole Blueweiss, and today we’re exploring the idea of when and whether as a parent to trust your gut, when to seek advice from professional healthcare workers, and we’ll hear about the astounding, unexpected results that can happen just from advocating for someone you love, even when others push back.
[00:00:28] Michele: Here I am. I’m faced with a child who has a challenge and I need to find a solution to this. Then you have another adult who’s adding onto the problem because instead of being your ally, he’s discouraging you from even pursuing finding solution to the problem because he just doesn’t wanna accept that there is a problem.
He looks at it like it’s not a problem, it’s just that he’s special. Yes, he is special, and we have to find a way to make it better.
[00:00:56] Carole: My guest today is Michele Beards. She’s the mother of actor and voiceover artist, Miguel Gabriel. When Miguel was in first grade and not speaking as much as his older sisters were at his age, Michele wasn’t too worried.
After all, every child develops at their own pace, right? Well, yes, but when the teacher started raising concerns about Miguel’s speech delay and his movement challenges, Michele’s mind shifted. She realized at that moment that this child was going on a different kind of journey than her other children.
Michele takes us through the ups and downs of getting the right help, the resistance she faced, even within her own family, and the incredible support she found in unexpected places. One of those places? Theatre. What started as a therapeutic outlet turned into a creative life-changing experience, ultimately leading Miguel to a career as a professional voiceover actor, and later at age 14 as a lead in a film with Beau Bridges called Camera.
Today’s conversation will be followed by an interview with Miguel in the weeks ahead. Let’s get started with Michele.
[00:02:09] Michele: I knew that Miguel, his sisters at two were already yapping nonstop. And I thought, because he was my only boy, I thought, oh, maybe boys just are really delayed. So I didn’t think about it much until his school principal called my attention about it, that at five he should be doing this and that. So for me, it’s like when somebody tells you that your son is falling off the grid, the matrix that he’s supposed to be at, you know, it breaks your heart as a parent.
And he is my youngest child and he belongs to a family where his half siblings on his dad’s first marriage are achievers and all that stuff. You worry about him. It’s like, oh my God. Suddenly, he’s gonna be different from the rest. And when somebody tells you certain things like that, so many things comes into your brain.
But the one thing I feel like parents should actually remember is that there’s always hope and that it takes a village. Because you won’t be able to do it alone ’cause it’s a pretty strange space to navigate, especially if you didn’t have that experience, especially if it doesn’t run in your family. You know?
It was nothing that existed on my mom’s side or my dad’s side, or none of my siblings had it. So you start comparing the child to other people, then you’ll just really get frustrated. So you have to take it as it is and then just do your utmost to find as much help as you can that’s available to you.
And I’m so glad actually, that when I met this speech therapist, she not only became like an ally and a friend, I mean she was as concerned as I am for Miguel’s wellbeing. And she was concerned about, okay, we can’t do therapy every day ’cause he’s gonna get bored and he’s not gonna like this because it’s very rigid.
We have to find fun in doing this, and that’s why it’s very interesting, Miguel, growing up, when we start talking much more about this after Camera, he was telling me like, oh my God, that was therapy? I thought that was just play, you know?
But I was so glad that that was what he was thinking because not only was he doing speech therapy, he was also doing physical therapy because his challenges was not just speech because he has bone growth delay, so the bone and muscle development is like three years delay. And so the speech was one of them, and the formation of the muscle is another. And so with the walking and the jumping and he can’t grip the scissors properly, he finds it difficult to grasp certain objects.
So it’s a whole spectrum of difficulty for a child his age. But we were doing all sorts of different therapy. They make it fun, like the speech therapy included theatre, and that’s how it helped him, you know, with his speech part, and then the people who were doing the physical therapy turned it into play like basketball and all this stuff incorporated into the therapy.
[00:05:19] Carole: That’s great. That’s ideal. Let’s backtrack a little bit. Couple of things that struck me. At what age did you think that there might be something not right?
[00:05:29] Michele: Oh, that was when he was five years old.
[00:05:33] Carole: And I assume that you were going to a pediatrician every year. So where was that disconnect that you were not getting some warnings by your doctor?
[00:05:42] Michele: So, oh, we went through so many. I went to Stanford Children’s Hospital, a endocrinologist, is monitoring his growth progress. I have a pediatrician and then I have a speech therapist. And then I have a physical therapist, so all of them would monitor Miguel.
[00:06:01] Carole: I’m curious why it took so long for the health professionals to say to you, maybe Miguel needs some extra services.
[00:06:10] Michele: With the pediatrician, she did notice his growth is stunted at the age 10 months, 11 months, as a baby. But then his dad is a very small guy. He’s only five three. So she thought, Hmm, maybe this is genetic, you know? And emotionally, Miguel’s pretty healthy, you know. Growing up, I mean, we would go to the pediatrician on a normal basis and they would ask him questions and obviously they would also measure other things like hearing and eye and all that.
But in terms of speech, there were signs already when he was three, four years old. But then the pediatrician was saying that maybe it’s just again, genetic on his part because, uh, his dad is small and second, we had him at the later age in our lives. I had him when I was 44 years old. And his dad was 56.
So there were constant observations and obviously there were red flags in terms of growth, but nothing that was something that the pediatrician would really let me urgently be referred to someone else, but at two, because of the growth delay, she did refer us to a urologist in Stanford and that’s when we were taking series of blood tests and x-rays. So indeed there were signs already of a bone growth delay from the results of the x-ray.
But in terms of hormones and other markers through the blood test, there didn’t seem to be anything that was alarming, but there are results that are below the normal range. They continued the monitoring and in fact, until now he’s still being monitored because he’s still very small for his age. In fact, we’re supposed to be going back again to Stanford, to his urologist in the next few months to just keep on monitoring.
[00:08:17] Carole: Usually children start to speak, I know it can vary. Not everybody starts at at age two, let’s say. What age was he when you were concerned or the medical team was concerned about his speech?
[00:08:31] Michele: Between four and five.
[00:08:33] Carole: Can you describe what his speech was like at that age?
[00:08:37] Michele: He would blurt things out, but nothing is clear. And then you wouldn’t really understand what he was talking about. He would say, you just hear, na, na, nana, na, na, na. But you don’t really hear the words, you know, but he’ll point at the TV or he’ll go close to it just to emphasize exactly what he’s trying to tell you, or he’ll hand you the DVD, things like that. But nothing is clear what a normal child would say. I wanna watch a video. You know.
[00:09:09] Carole: When he was three and four, I know that you said that well, because he is a boy that maybe he is just, he’s delayed. The doctor didn’t seem to be concerned that he didn’t have those full sentences?
[00:09:22] Michele: She did point it out to me that he is delayed compared to the normal range of kids this age, but then he said with boys. It was really the school that called my attention if I were to be honest about the whole thing, not the pediatrician. She would be more concerned about the growth, the weight, the height, you know more on that, not much on the speech. Yeah.
[00:09:46] Carole: When did you first hear about the idea of going to speech therapy and how did that play out for you? How did you find someone?
[00:09:54] Michele: It was really the school that suggested speech therapy because in Miguel’s situation, for example, he goes to a school where there would be like 15 to 16 kids of the same age and this time boys. Right? So no longer comparing you to girls’ development. And it’s not just his speech, it’s his locomotion. He can’t grip objects, he can’t cut paper with scissors. And they would do cooking classes and they would need to hold kitchen tools and yeah, so that emphasized everything ’cause compared to 14 other kids, you’re the only kid who can’t do those things. So that’s when it probably caught their attention that, okay, there’s something wrong here. So that’s when they called me.
[00:10:47] Carole: When that happened, how did you respond to that? What did you do?
[00:10:52] Michele: I was really surprised. I was actually nervous and scared at the same time ’cause I dunno how to navigate that. I didn’t have any kids who had that. And my ex-husband that time, Miguel’s dad had two boys and he did not have any of those experience. And he’s also in denial. That was also the other challenge on my end. He was totally in denial and so when I was actually head on ready to find the solution to this problem, he was like, no, there’s no way.
He, yeah, he didn’t, he didn’t wanna accept it, so I was the only one who’s like every day trying to find help to get this addressed for him. This is like oh, they’re just totally wrong. He even refers to this issue as a circle and a square peg, you know, this kind of thing. Like he’s just different, you know? He, he’s just special.
He is, but we need to address it, you know? So it became also an issue of our marriage, and that’s the reason why it also eventually ended up in divorce because. He was the parent who was in denial about the whole thing.
[00:12:05] Carole: Thank you for sharing ’cause I’m sure you’re not the only one out there who faces that and it’s not usually talked about. One thing to have a child who needs some extra services that you know you need to do a lot of research for ’cause our society, our system doesn’t really support it that well. So you have to research and if you don’t have a support system with your partner, it makes it that much harder, right?
[00:12:26] Michele: Exactly, and you know, you don’t get the other point of view that is all about finding the solution. It’s like you feel like, okay, here I am, I’m faced with a child who has a challenge and I need to find a solution to this. Then you have another adult who’s adding onto the problem because instead of being your ally, he’s discouraging you from even pursuing finding solution to the problem because he just doesn’t wanna accept that there is a problem, right? He looks at it like it’s not a problem, it’s just that he’s special. Yes, he is special and we have to find a way to make it better, you know, make him a better person out of this so special situation. So, yeah.
[00:13:12] Carole: What’s the first step you took? Do you remember? I’m sure you felt overwhelmed, but.
[00:13:16] Michele: So that school obviously is not, it’s not their first rodeo. Definitely, they’ve had children who has had challenges, so they have a battery of resources right at their fingertip, and they gave me kind of like a catalog of different types of therapy, physical therapy, speech therapies, and all of their information are there. So they gave that to me and then they gave me links to different resources that I could also reach out to on the web and said, you know, you can do your homework and, you know, interview as many of these people and see how, you know, they could actually help you.
And I did. And I found Kara, and that’s when I went into her office and we discussed Miguel’s situation. She did have Miguel take a few tests so that we could identify exactly what his challenges are, and yeah. And that’s when we came up with a program. She was very upfront with me and say, you know, if you really want Miguel to make it to first grade, because the red flag was that he won’t be able to make it to first grade if we don’t do this. They’re not gonna accept him.
And so we have a timeline, sort of like a deadline to get Miguel to a certain point when that comes around. And we only have like a year and a half to work on that. So she actually came up with a plan for a year and a half and we started talking about it and she said that knowing that you have to do speech therapy, physical therapy, and still, you know, have Stanford Hospital constantly monitor Miguel, it can be financially draining.
And that’s when she said the best way probably we can do is to find other resources to help Miguel, especially on the speech therapy side. That’s when she suggested theatre, and she said that there’s not a lot of theatre groups or schools that would accept a five-year-old, but I know that the Bay Area Children’s Theatre would.
Even if he just joins the group and gets acclimated to how they work, it will be a good start. And that’s how we got into theatre actually because of that. Because to do speech therapy every day, and I was willing to do it, it’s gonna be very financially draining.
[00:15:39] Carole: And it was less expensive in the theatre program?
[00:15:43] Michele: Yeah, because it’s a local community. It’s through the Danville Community Center. So, yeah, so the fees are subsidized by the city of Danville.
[00:15:55] Carole: Wow, that’s fantastic. And that’s such a, that’s such a great complementary activity. You had spoken about Miguel having some bullying going on in school. How old was he when that started and what, what was that like for you and for him?
[00:16:12] Michele: Yeah, so that started when he was in third grade. That’s when kids start being more active in sports and taking sports a little bit more seriously, like more competitive. He goes to a school where there’s a lot more boys that are involved in sports rather than the arts. In fact, in Miguel’s class alone of 25 kids, I would say there are only two boys that are involved in theatre, in the arts, and this other boy actually is even from Spain. They’re just visiting as a family.
So physical education is focused on basketball and the teacher asked them to form two groups of boys. Miguel’s very popular among the big kids. Because they look at him because he’s so small, they look at him like a baby, their baby, right? But among his peers, kids his age, then they look at him as a small underdeveloped boy, right? So when they were forming the teams, some of the boys were like wanting Miguel on their team. We’re gonna have Miguel. We’re gonna have Miguel.
So there’s this other boy that says, why are you all fighting for Miguel to be on your team when he’s a midget? We’re just going to lose the game if we have him on our team. And so when the other kids heard this boy call Miguel a midget, they were all shocked. Like, oh my God. But Miguel did not hear what he said.
And so these two boys came to Miguel ’cause they thought Miguel heard it and say, no, Miguel, don’t, don’t, don’t listen to him. Don’t worry about it. And but Miguel had no clue what it was all about. And so one of the boys told Miguel, oh, you know, this boy called you a midget and didn’t want you on their team. So that happened.
And then I picked up Miguel from school that day and he walked into my car. I always tell him, how was your day? How was your day at school? And he would tell me. And he did tell me about this story, about what happened. And my heart sank when I heard it. And I said, then what did you do? How did you feel?
I’m fine. I’m okay. But I could feel the sadness in his voice, right? So I immediately sent an email to his teacher and his principal, and I said that this incident happened in school today, and I feel like this needs to be addressed because this boy cannot go on calling children names like this, even if my son is, he said he’s okay with it, right?
So the following day, the the teacher did receive the email from me and spoke to Miguel and the other boys that were involved in the incident. And they were called into the principal’s office to talk about the whole situation because I said, you’ve got to nip this in the bud. This cannot go on because this boy is gonna call other kids names.
And I heard that he has done that to other kids in other situations. So when the teacher updated me about the situation that they did talk to the boys and the principal did talk to the boys. When Miguel came home, I sat him down and I wanted to find out how he felt about it, because I did notice a sadness in his voice when he told me about the incident and he said, mom, you know, I thought about it and I can’t do anything about my height, but to tell you honestly, I’m totally comfortable about who I am. I’m happy with who I am. So that was one incident.
[00:19:56] Carole: How old was he?
[00:19:58] Michele: Third grade would be eight years old.
[00:20:00] Carole: Wow.
[00:20:01] Michele: I’d say eight years old. So that was the first incident. And then second one was in community theatre school that he attends twice a week. So they were having a formation. And then it’s a mix of different kids from different ages.
So the dance theatre instructor said, okay, all kids eight and below at this side, oh, eight and above on this side, and all kids seven and below on this side. And Miguel being eight years old, obviously went with the kids who are eight. And again, he looks like a 6-year-old, right? And so all of these kids that were eight and saw Miguel joining them like, you don’t belong here.
You don’t belong here. It says eight and above. And Miguel said but I’m eight years old. No, you’re not. You know, they insist, no, you’re not. You’re so small, you cannot be eight. And so the music drama teacher heard it and was like, no, no, no. He’s special. He is going to be there. He belongs in that group. You just go and do what I said that you have to work on as a group.
So he kind of like, after the class called Miguel and say, Miguel, don’t listen to them. You are great for who you are, in fact, in this industry. For who you are, you are even going to thrive longer than anyone else, and you’re gonna do better than anyone else because of who you are right now. So you start referring to Miguel looking younger than his age, and you know that in the industry, in the showbiz industry, the smaller you are, the more longevity you have.
So he kind of like talked to Miguel about it. And so that’s why I said it takes a community, right, to raise a child, a special child like that because he hears assurances from other people that, no, you’re great as you are. And so Miguel always, every time this happens, I would, you know, talk to him and say, how do you feel about that thing that happened? Mom, don’t worry about it! I’m totally confident and comfortable in my skin.
[00:22:14] Carole: Do you think that the theatre was a major part of that ability at such a young age to feel so grounded?
[00:22:22] Michele: Oh, yes. In fact, I’ll tell you a very special story that happened one time. This is very personal, but I am happy to share it because I’m sure other parents or other mothers or single parents would’ve had a similar challenge.
Finally, Miguel’s dad and I divorced, and so we faced financial difficulty and he was going to a private school at that time. So of course I have to cut back on expenses. And one of the first things that I cut back on was that theatre class, because that cost several thousands of dollars a year to be in theatre class.
But Miguel has already gained recognition on how good he is in that class, but I had to pull him out and that was in grade grade. So when the theatre group started, they recognized Miguel was not part of the theatre class that year, and all the kids started looking for Miguel and they started crying that Miguel wasn’t there.
And so I got called in again at the principal’s office. Maria said that the kids want Miguel back at theatre class. They all were wondering why he’s not there. I explained it to the principal because he knows that I was going through divorce because there were provisions that came from the court on visitation and pickup, and I said, Maria, I cannot afford it.
It’s a very expensive class. Unfortunately, I have to pull Miguel out if I want him to survive in this school because it’s, the tuition’s very expensive. And so she had to explain that to the theatre director why Miguel cannot go back to theatre class. Believe it or not, Carole, the kids pulled their lunch money together to pay for his theatre class.
And so I’m crying, just remembering the whole story. So I got called back again and Maria said, this time you have no choice. You have to give Miguel back to theatre because all the kids paid for his tuition.
And so when Miguel went back to theatre class, everybody was so happy. They all hugged each other and they all cried and yeah, that’s how special he is. That’s how everybody loves him for who he is. So yeah, that happened to us.
[00:24:48] Carole: Thank you for sharing. I’m a little teary, so I’m gonna compose myself.
[00:24:54] Michele: Yes.
[00:24:56] Carole: Wow.
[00:24:57] Michele: Yeah. That’s how he feels the love in theatre. He gets loved by people that are in the theatre class. Yeah. So it’s really finding, finding his place in this world where he will feel loved and will he will feel accepted and where he feels important and special. That’s why he continues to do what he does.
You know, theatre and acting and all that stuff. And it’s also hard for a boy, just probably other parents would relate to this who has boys who have challenges, especially with boys here in America and where we are, we’re boys are expected to be focused on sports. And sports is such an emphasis. Where we live, it’s a big deal.
Parents spend so much money on sports. And so when you’re a boy and you’re not in sports, but you’re rather in arts, other kids your age look down on you, they don’t get you into their circle. And this is very significant because in the school where Miguel goes to, it’s a mix of boys and girls. In the beginning, he’s more accepted by the girls ’cause they look at him like a baby brother.
But then the moment he start becoming popular because of theatre and the bigger kids, like the seventh graders and the eighth graders are all fighting to have Miguel, ’cause they have this thing called little brother, big brother, little sister, big sister. Every Friday, all the seventh graders and eighth graders are fighting to have Miguel with them for reading class for activities on Fridays.
And that’s when the boys started to realize like, why is Miguel so popular? Like, what does he have that, you know, we don’t have. Believe it or not, the boys that bullied him started becoming his friends because Miguel never got scared of them. He was just nice to them and friendly to them. In fact, there was a kid that came from a public school that was transferred in fourth grade in Miguel’s school, and he was known to be the biggest bully in the public school that they kicked him out, and that’s a reason why his parents moved him to the private school for discipline.
Miguel befriended him. Miguel’s task to himself was always be the friend to the newest kid on the block, and so he didn’t know that he was a bully, that’s why he was being moved from the public school to the private school. And so he started becoming his friend. In fact, Miguel was the first kid who actually invited him to have lunch with him and sat down beside him and all that stuff, and his mom came to me.
That’s how I knew why he was transferred to our school. It’s his mom who told me the backstory and she was so happy. He’s like, I’m so happy with your son because he made friends with my son and he was worried because he’s a new kid on the block and he would not have friends and he has a problems making friends. At the end of the day, all the bullies were Miguel’s protector. They became his bodyguards, believe it or not.
[00:28:00] Carole: The bullies became his bodyguards.
[00:28:02] Michele: Bodyguards, yes. Yeah, because when he had to leave finally that school, because he signed a big contract with NBC at that time. That was prior to Covid, he signed a six and a half year contract with NBC, supposedly for a romcom.
So we have to pull him outta school and make him online schooling because of his schedule. They threw a farewell party for Miguel, and believe it or not, Carole, there was a big preparation behind it. They had a slide presentation. They had a video presentation of all the kids saying their goodbyes, and I thought it was the girls who put it together. No, it was the boys who put it together, and it was the bullies who headed it. That made it even more special. It’s amazing.
[00:28:54] Carole: Wow. So this is interesting, and I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it and I don’t, I don’t want to, ’cause I have not experienced this, but you have. Would you say that that Miguel has some kind of a natural ability that might be helpful for other parents or other kids to hear how to diffuse bullying or how to manage it? Or in a way that’s not necessarily intuitive. For Miguel, it’s intuitive, but maybe other kids can learn from Miguel. Do you have anything to say about that?
[00:29:26] Michele: Yes, absolutely, and also parents could learn from it. The one thing that I would say to parents, and I feel this is my contribution to that confidence that Miguel has, is my father always says children only need two things to grow, love and food.
Just as often as you feed your children food is as often as you feed your children love. And I told you I didn’t get much support from his dad, but I got a lot of support from my parents and my dad had a lot of wisdom to share about it. And the one wisdom he said, don’t worry about it. There are only two things that children need to grow in this world, a lot of love and a lot of food. So, ’cause my dad’s love language is food, so he’s like, if you feed him as much love as you feed him food, then you know he’ll be fine. And so every day I make sure Miguel knows that, that he’s loved by everybody, that I love him, and I have his back every day, morning, noon, and night.
In the morning when he wakes up, when I send him off to school, when I pick him up, when I tuck him to bed, I always remind him how much he’s loved. And I think having that and knowing that he has also that much support from the people that surrounds him every day, from his siblings to the teachers and the people that he interacts with.
We were very lucky to have those people, his therapist, his school teachers, his theatre instructors. I think that all fed into that level of confidence that Miguel has. And having that much richness in him, he’s able to share that. He’s able to share that with other kids ’cause the one thing I noticed with Miguel is he will always spot the kid that’s alone.
He’ll always spot the kid that’s that has nobody to talk to, and he has no problem approaching that kid and being friends with that kid because it kind of like became his rule because I feel like he probably felt that too for himself. So it became to a point when he became so popular in school that every kid wants to be with Miguel.
Every kid wants to be seated beside Miguel. In fact, other parents joke me. It’s like, we have to clone Miguel because everybody’s crying in the bus. They wanna sit beside Miguel. They wanna sit beside Miguel in the classroom, you know?
[00:31:53] Carole: To have those feelings of being hurt and to then use that as a way to help other people or as a way to empathize with others, as opposed to hold it in or feel angry or feel disrespected or feel negative feelings. He figured that out. That’s like a magic potion.
[00:32:12] Michele: I am the biggest cheerleader for Miguel. He becomes the biggest cheerleader for other kids that has the same situation like him, because that’s the one thing the teachers have been telling me, like, oh my God, it’s amazing how Miguel is such a cheerleader for other kids.
Like he’s never insecure, like when somebody’s better than him on certain things, he doesn’t feel like, oh my gosh. You know, I’m challenged now because he’s better. No, Miguel never had that attitude. In fact, when he auditions, for example, and there are other boys who are, have identical look and identical talent like him, he doesn’t look at them as a competition. He looks at them as like, Hey, I hope you get it. I hope you get it. And if somebody else gets it, he’s the biggest cheerleader for them. And genuinely, it’s not like he’s faking it or it’s just a show. He genuinely is happy for them, you know? And I think that’s what makes him also very confident about himself. Yeah.
[00:33:16] Carole: I find it very refreshing this conversation in that we’re not speaking about a label or a diagnosis, but I am curious to know if there was a diagnosis for this medley of challenges.
[00:33:29] Michele: We’ve lived in a world where we just know that Miguel has a speech delay. But I know there is a diagnosis, an official diagnosis, but to be honest, all the x-rays, all the test results, all the blood works, my ex threw them away because he was very frustrated about the whole thing.
[00:33:49] Carole: When he was at risk for not going to first grade, with all the therapies that you found for him, did he catch up enough to get into first grade?
[00:33:55] Michele: So I was willing to actually delay him, to be honest, Carole, because I was more realistic about the whole thing. Like if Miguel really couldn’t make it to the cut for that year, I told his therapist, I’m happy to delay him, but again, his dad is like, no, no, no, no. He can do it. He he’ll go through it, you know?
[00:34:17] Carole: And then he continued on the the regular protocol.
[00:34:20] Michele: Yeah, he continued on. But I will be honest that I had to pay extra help for everything. Yeah.
[00:34:28] Carole: You went through all the hoops and it’s good to hear the reality that yeah, it takes money. It takes time. I think you told me that you quit your job.
[00:34:37] Michele: Yes, I quit my job because I had to take him to therapy every day. Every day without fail. And not only that. It’s like when you know this is normal, but you have to supplement it. It’s the supplementing that was, I’d say that made it work for Miguel. You have to really supplement it. I know it’s not easy. I have this discussion with parents during therapy sessions where parents are outside waiting, right, while your child is inside doing their therapy sessions.
We did talk about the financial challenges of it. We talk about the time challenge of it, and a lot of parents would just be happy to do the minimum because that’s all they can afford in terms of money and time. It takes longer for their child to get out of it, right?
But hey, you know, we just have to be honest about facing the reality. You literally have to do the extra work, whatever that may take, whether you have to get the help of other people or just be resourceful, just like theatre was a resource, an extra resource for me.
[00:35:43] Carole: And just to be clear, it doesn’t sound like from what you said, I just wanna make sure this is accurate. He did not have a problem with stuttering.
[00:35:50] Michele: It was a little.
[00:35:52] Carole: Oh, okay. So, because I didn’t hear that. So can you tell me about that?
[00:35:57] Michele: I was told that stuttering comes in different spectrums or different ranges. Miguel’s stuttering was not very pronounced, but you can tell that it takes time for him to even start a sentence. Like he would and sometimes you kind of like already know ’cause he starts the first letter of the word. Like if I say I want to go out, for example, and instead of saying, mom, I wanna go out.
It’s be mom, I, I, I, I, wanna go out. You know, it’ll take it, it takes so much pausing, but once he’s blurted out the sentence, then it’s a continuous sentence. He doesn’t have the stuttering anymore, but it takes time sometimes for him to blurt out a whole sentence because what he’s doing is he’s putting it in his brain first and kind of like composing it in his brain and making sure that when he blurts out the whole sentence, it’s continuous.
But once he continues, it’s already continues. So you’ll find probably when you interview him, he will pause a bit and put everything in his his brain first and then say what he wants to say.
[00:37:12] Carole: I look forward to talking to him. With the movie Camera where he gave a brilliant performance, I encourage my audience to go see that movie. It’s not about Miguel per se, but it is about a boy who does not speak at all and finds, his expression through a camera and through finding a mentor.
But the expressions that he has and the ability to act without talking is uncanny. So do you, do you wanna say anything about that? Like how did he, how much did he practice for that kind of a role? Or what was it like?
[00:37:48] Michele: Yeah, so this is very interesting because all of the roles Miguel has auditioned for, or even books are all speaking roles, or he’s even a voiceover talent for a lot of the animation movies like Puss in Boots 2. And he did series in Nickelodeon and HBO Max.
And I was even telling his speech therapist that, hey, this is an ode to you. This is, this is a trophy for you. You have got a child who has speech challenges and is a voiceover talent for all of these big companies. Dreamworks. When the script came, we were like, okay, there’s no speaking parts, Miguel, because they don’t give you the full script, right?
They give you the sides. And you go through it and then you realize, wait, there’s no lines here for you. It’s all the lines of Beau or the lines of the mother, right? And then the script came along and then we started reading the script, and that’s when it dawned on us. It’s like, oh my God, Miguel, this is not strange for you.
This is similar to the story of your life. So I was telling him like, you know this child, you could relate to this child, right? So when we were preparing for the audition, the first audition, they just gave all the kids probably a line to read so they could record themselves and hear them talk. Right? And how would they react on, on a particular script reading.
But when he was called back for the second audition, that’s when there were no lines at all. So one thing that his speech therapist noticed, that’s why she suggested theatre, was that two things she recognized when she did the first test for Miguel was that he could sight read and that he is very expressive with his face.
I noticed that when he wants to say something, he will try to blurt it out, but I could see his facial expression. And so I told him, the boy in the script is like you. And he goes, yeah, I know. I realize it. But then how are we going to do the audition? That, so that the director and the the casting director can understand what you are interpreting.
So we did watch Helen Keller, The Miracle Worker. And then some other movies where the main character is not talking. So there was CODA and then Miracle Worker, right. But the role of this boy is not really deaf mute. In fact, the inspiration to the role of this boy, I believe was Jay Silverman’s, one of his daughters.
And she has speech challenges, but I think it was a surgery that she went through. So that’s why I think when she was little, she decided not to talk as much. And that’s kind of like the character in this movie. We were even teasing Jay, I said at the end of the movie, will you actually have Miguel say something so that people can understand that he has a voice, but it’s just like, rah, like that.
That’s how it is. But then again, they did not do that, right? So, anyway. So when Miguel auditioned for this, his inspiration was his own experience and The Miracle Worker. So yeah, all of those. And Miguel’s a great dancer, by the way, that the other way he expresses his art is through dance. So he does the hip hop really well, and he does tap dancing really well.
[00:41:16] Carole: Let’s speak about the voiceovers, because that is just something very. It’s like befriending your bullies. It’s like someone who has troubled speaking ends up being a professional speaker.
[00:41:29] Michele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:41:32] Carole: How does that happen?
[00:41:34] Michele: Yeah, so because of Miguel’s speech therapy, he became a very eloquent speaker in a way that he pronounces his words really well, because I don’t know if you’ve seen how speech therapy works with children. It’s very precise, right?
So when they sit down with the therapist and they read words in a sentence, every pause, every letter, every word is taught to the child properly, how they’re supposed to be pronounced properly. So for example, when Miguel reads the word, I am sitting down so I am sitting down, like the therapist really will teach the child to pronounce every letter of the word properly.
So that’s how Miguel learned reading and speaking, right? So by the time he’s crossed over a lot of the challenges of his speech issues, when he reads, he reads it with much emphasis and a proper diction. So when, when was the first? The first ever voiceover assignment he got was Geico. It’s a Geico commercial, and we did run it through with his acting coach, which is Aubrey Miller and she teaches him exactly how each sentence and how each line should be emphasized and pronounced and spoken. So every audition Miguel makes, he has an acting coach. And believe it or not, he also auditions for other languages. So he speaks Spanish ’cause he had How to Get Away with Murder, and that’s in Spanish.
He also does the British accent. And the Irish accent. And the Scottish accent, and he has another coach for that. So like, this is what I meant, Carole, by supplementing, right? He could have gotten away with just auditioning by himself, but I feel that if you wanna reach out for perfection, you gotta reach out for the people who would actually help him reach perfection.
I always tell Miguel, ’cause sometimes he always says, look, what, why do we have to disturb Aubrey? Why do we have to disturb, Kara Lea ’cause these are all his coaches, when I can do this and audition myself. I say, listen, do you think that all those great athletes, those well decorated athletes go out on the field without a coach? They still have their coaches there. Every game, every play they make, their coach is there teaching them, pointing out to them, how can they be better? How can they be greater? So he goes on audition every time is with a coach, and they’re always there.
[00:44:22] Carole: Did you have a mentor or a coach in any parts of your life?
[00:44:26] Michele: I’d say my dad. My dad and my mom are great parents, great coaches. There’s four of us, but we’re kind of like a tightly knit family. My dad, he always says us, we’re a team. So whatever you do out there, we can’t be there for you 24/7. But whatever you do out there, think about the team. So please conduct yourselves properly in public.
You know, in the Spanish culture, a lot of the people say, we don’t have much money, but we’ve got our family name. And holding up to the family reputation is a big deal in the Spanish culture. So that’s kind of like how my dad always tells us, you don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have much to give you guys as an inheritance, but the one thing I have to let you know is that I’m very proud of our family and our family name, so please take care of it. Whatever you do out there, remember that you’re carrying the team’s name with you on your shirt, on your back, on your head.
[00:45:25] Carole: How did you afford? It’s like, okay, well it sounds like she didn’t have a lot of money. She quit her job. She had that great thing happened with everyone pooling their money to help with that hurdle. But all these coaches and all this that he’s going through now, how are you figuring out how to pay for that?
[00:45:42] Michele: So that’s a very good question, and actually all you have to do really is to be honest with the people that you reach out to to help your child. They would come up with their fees and we’ll come up with how much it’s gonna cost when you approach this professional therapist, and you’ll just have to be really honest with them.
So I have to work a lot with the community. Depends on which city or which community you belong to. There are programs that are available through the local communities. They do provide therapies. You just have to get in line and just be really vigilant about getting in line and getting their help and just continuously researching.
I’m a very good researcher myself because I had to be resourceful, right? And I have to be mindful of a budget. You know, there is a budget that I put for Miguel’s therapy back then, and I wasn’t afraid to be honest about it when I talked to therapists. And I do have a side hustle. I teach cooking classes in the community, so that’s kind of like the barter trade that I do.
I’ll teach your child healthy cooking, nutrition, cooking. Yeah, that’s how I survive and help out other parents. I belong to a group of women in church that do support other moms, other parents that are single. And they have what they call a sunshine committee where people who struggle to raise children, they pull resources together to provide for grocery money or food money or. And then I did work. And in fairness to Miguel’s dad, he did supplement some of them, but he thinks that he’s supplementing food, but I’m actually putting the budget on something else. So yeah, it’s just being mindful about where you distribute the resources you have.
[00:47:44] Carole: Thank you for sharing that. It’s a personal question, but I think something that I’m sure other families wonder about. What about all the coaching, the acting and all that? I mean, can you barter with them?
[00:47:56] Michele: So for the theatre, you already know the story behind that. You know, those kids pull their money together to get Miguel to theatre class and there are parents who are aware of our situation, so they actually help. And then like what I said, I belong to that community where they pool money together so that you could pay for your gas and your food. So instead of me paying for gas and food, ’cause that comes in from help from the community, then the extra money that I make from my side hustle to put to pay for therapy.
[00:48:25] Carole: I don’t mean therapy, I mean like literally the coaching that he’s had with his acting coach.
[00:48:31] Michele: They love Miguel so much, they do it for free.
[00:48:34] Carole: What? So his acting and theatre coaches, they all do it for free.
[00:48:38] Michele: Yeah. They love Miguel. So, ’cause I can’t afford it. I can’t put Miguel there, you know, so they do it for free. Aubrey is an amazing coach. She does it for free. I cannot thank her enough and her mother enough. She’s only 21 years old, by the way. She was 21 when we were working with her. She’s now 23. Yeah. But even then, she treats Miguel like a younger brother.
[00:49:08] Carole: So she’s an actress?
[00:49:09] Michele: She’s an actress herself.
[00:49:10] Carole: So she’s teaching him everything she knows.
[00:49:12] Michele: Everything, all the tricks of the trade and beyond even. And beyond, like surviving the industry and navigating the industry. Just like a sister to him. We are blessed to have met these kinds of people. To be honest, it’s not everybody who would be lucky to meet good people around, but for some reason we were very lucky to be surrounded by good people.
[00:49:36] Carole: And at some point, Miguel gets money for all these jobs, right? He’s basically a professional now.
[00:49:41] Michele: Correct.
[00:49:41] Carole: I’m sure you put that into some fund for him for the future.
[00:49:45] Michele: Yeah. I don’t touch the money he makes. And now we’re good. And now we’re good. We’re financially good. We’re financially stable. I’ve remarried. I have a great husband who has 15 years of career in broadcasting to himself. We’re financially blessed at the moment, and so we give back and, and now it’s our time to give back. Yeah.
[00:50:07] Carole: Is there anything else you’d like me to ask you, before we end here, that I didn’t ask you?
[00:50:13] Michele: No, I just hope that our discussion here would shed light into some of the parents and help them navigate the challenges, whatever that may be that they’re facing with their child or, yeah, because it’s not an easy world, but with the help of other people, it makes it better.
It makes life better. And I’d even say beautiful because once you start meeting great people, like Jay is the only director we ever worked with that became practically a family too. The entire cast and crew of Camera is just amazing. It may be an indie film. It may have been like just a short 18 days of shoot, but the amount of friendship. It was just amazing. It was just like family. Miguel has worked in the set of other projects, but it’s never been like this. Like to this day ,we still talk and reach out and communicate and we know each other at the personal level, not just because of Camera and not just because of the movie, but at a personal level.
And Beau Bridges, he may be triple A star, but he is so down to earth. Like the other week when he and Miguel were at the CBS studio, it was very cold inside the studio. He reached out for the jacket and said, Miguel, wear the jacket. It’s very cold here. Like, you know, he, he’s like, he’s still like Eric in the movie, taking care of Miguel.
[00:51:42] Carole: Where can people find out if they wanna see Camera?
[00:51:46] Michele: They can watch Camera on Amazon Prime video and on Apple TV and Vudu. So there are other streaming platforms that you could actually download Camera and then they could follow him on his Instagram account @officialMiguelGabriel, because that’s where he announces all of the projects that he he’s working on.
He’s gonna come out on a gaming platform show where they could play with Miguel and win, I believe it’s $200 if they win the game, you know, so if they follow him on Instagram, everything about Camera and the other projects Miguel’s working on, he’ll be able to participate and even watch.
[00:52:25] Carole: Great. I’ll put all this information in the show notes. I wanna thank you so much for taking the time. I can’t say enough, you know, words really can’t really say what I really feel about, you know, and other people are gonna feel about you opening up and being so honest and being just a great mom and just getting to hear how you did that.
[00:52:48] Michele: Yeah.
[00:52:49] Carole: So thank you so much.
[00:52:50] Michele: Thank you so much, Carole. It was great talking to you, too.
[00:52:58] Carole: Michele, like most of us mere mortals didn’t have all the answers, but she never stopped searching to find what would help her son the most. She found a supportive theatre community and followed Miguel’s lead. Sometimes it’s the opportunities you never expect that make all the difference. Next time we’ll hear from Miguel himself. He’ll share his journey as a younger child, how he thinks about his challenges of being different than his neurotypical classmates.
His story is one of finding one’s own path. In his role in the movie Camera, he plays a boy who cannot speak. I was so curious to know his feelings about reading a script where he had no lines, and then deliver a performance where he communicated so much. You won’t wanna miss this conversation.
Thank you so much for listening to Wisdom Shared. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to check out all the other episodes. Go to caroleblueweiss.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you’re hearing on Wisdom Shared, please spread the word and share this podcast with your friends. Leave a review and subscribe so you can receive wisdom every month. Thanks for listening.
