I grew up in America, the child of an immigrant father from Ireland.
that someone from a family like mine would be a doctor, lawyer or engineersomething with a steady paycheck.
But my life took this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants path.
I was asked towalk the runways with supermodels, doing fashionshoots with the best photographers in the world.
In interviews, people would ask, Whats next?
And Id say, One day Ill come back to my first love: acting.
Eventually I started thinking, when is that day going to come?
It became apparent to me that not every opportunity would move me forward on the path I envisioned.
Its taken a little while for casting directors to stop seeing me as just someone who wears prosthetic legs.
I love that I now get to playcharacters.
Thats why I was drawn to acting in the first place: To not be Aimee Mullins.
To stretch and push and pull myself to the farthest reaches of my emotional, intellectual and physical capacity.
With acting, I was cognizant from the beginning that Im in this game for the long run.
We mutually decide if and when they can have a life elsewhere.
Shocking is not interesting to me.
Its easy and cheap.
Provocative is a different story.
These assumptive notions can be sneaky and pervasive.
I thought to myself, To whom are you referring with this umbrella term able-bodied?
Are they able-bodied because they dont have an obvious assistive medical machine?
And, by this journalists presumption, Im not?
They are a conduit for what I can do, just like a pool cue is.
The idea of how we describe ourselves and othersall of usneeds to evolve.
Would you ever say, This is my color-blind friend, Mike.
He cant distinguish between colors, but hes a really great guy!
Its pretty clear that werealldifferently-abled.
None of us need to be labeled that way.
I have a global modeling contract with LOreal Paris that Im really excited about.
Its an amazing company and I truly believe in the transformative power of makeup.
And theseLOreal ads feature my face close-up, just like any other woman with a beauty campaign.
A third said, I thought she was the one in those Matthew Barney art movies.
Someone else said, Wasnt she the first person to run on those iconic prosthetic legs?
Photo Credit: Jill Greenberg
