Shaylee Mansfield

Shaylee Ava Mansfield (born April 6, 2009) is an American actress. Mansfield, who is deaf, first gained recognition by making YouTube videos in which she told Christmas stories in American Sign Language. Mansfield appeared in an "Unforgettable Stories" video advertisement by Disney Parks, in which she met Minnie Mouse, who was learning sign language at Walt Disney World. The video quickly went viral and became one of Disney's most-watched advertisements.

Mansfield made her acting debut in 2019 in Disney's Noelle. The following year, her request for automatic captioning on Instagram drew attention from several media publications and became popular on Twitter. She received further recognition for her roles in the films Feel the Beat (2020) and 13 Minutes (2021). In 2022, for her performance on Madagascar: A Little Wild, Mansfield possibly became the first deaf actress to be credited alongside the "audible" voice actors for her "sign over" performance in an animated production.

Life and career 2009–2018: Early life and YouTube videos Shaylee Mansfield was born deaf in Burbank, California in 2009. Her parents—former actor Sheena McFeely and Manny Johnson —are also deaf and run ASL Nook, a website and YouTube channel that teaches American Sign Language (ASL). Mansfield has a younger sister, Ivy, who is not deaf. In 2015, she enacted Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. HuffPost called her 2016 retelling of The Polar Express "beautiful ... like you've never seen before". The Mansfields also appeared alongside two other predominantly deaf families in the documentary film Born This Way Presents: Deaf Out Loud, The New York Times Margaret Lyons described it as earnest and the families featured as "incredibly compelling, thoughtful and telegenic".

2019–present: Acting debut In 2019, Mansfield made her acting debut as Michelle, a homeless, deaf girl, in the Disney+ film Noelle. the role was, according to Variety, helpful to Mansfield's career. In July 2019, Netflix announced Mansfield had been cast in its film Feel the Beat, which received ambivalent reviews. In 2021, Mansfield appeared as Peyton, the deaf daughter of Kim (Amy Smart) and Brad (Peter Facinelli), in 13 Minutes; The Hollywood Reporter said she had a "very natural screen presence".

Mansfield met Delbert and Jevon Whetter, deaf consultants for the animated series Madagascar: A Little Wild, at a panel for RespectAbility; following the panel, Mansfield's mother asked whether the show needed a deaf actor. After having a familiarization meeting with DreamWorks, Mansfield was quickly offered a role in the series. Because of the earlier relationship between Mansfield and the Whetters, Mansfield did not go through the regular casting procedure for A Little Wild. The show's original intent to depict a boy was adjusted to a girl, who was named and modeled after Mansfield.

In 2023, Mansfield portrayed Ollie Nicoletti in ABC's drama series The Company You Keep. In a review, Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times praised her performance as "instantly endearing". The show was canceled after one season.

Advocacy During her YouTube career, Mansfield aimed to encourage children and families to learn ASL. Through her performances as an actor, she works to demonstrate authenticity to the deaf community and raise awareness about ASL. She uses her social media as a platform to teach others about sign language and raise awareness. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mansfield posted a video on Twitter criticizing Instagram for a lack of captioning; in it, she said she and over 400 million other deaf or hard-of-hearing people are unable to understand videos with sound. Her video was liked and retweeted thousands of times. that automatically transcribes speech in Instagram Stories. 2019

Michelle Streaming film 2020

Zuzu Streaming film 2021

Peyton 2023

Ollie Nicoletti 7 episodes