This article is part of a series called Seen: Spotlighting Disability Representation in Hollywood. Every month, VisABLE will highlight a person with a disability in Hollywood with the purpose of uplifting their voices and showing the impact people with different abilities have on the industry.
Eric Swymer has animated some of the most profound, famous films and series of the half decade.
From Marvel movies like The Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther, to Disney+’s WandaVision, and Netflix’s Red Notice, Swymer has been paid to utilize his skill set on more than a dozen major projects.
Swymer also happens to be one of only a few animators with a disability in Hollywood.
“There are not a lot of us,” he said. “I’ve tried to find people, just kind of out of curiosity, and haven’t gotten anywhere.”
There are no statistics specifically tracking the number of disabled animators in Hollywood (that we could find); however, a February 2022 report in the U.K. called on improving accessibility in the country’s animation industry.
The study, called “Accessibility in Animation“, was conducted by Screenskills in partnership with Manchester Animation Festival and the Visible in Visuals network. More than 120 people participated in the survey. It showed the majority — 56% — of the disabled people interviewed disagree that the animation sector is a good industry for disabled people to work within. The people with disabilities surveyed also reported more problems than their non-disabled counterparts. Issues include the inability to discuss disability, discrimination, and lack of training regarding inclusion and accessibility.
Because Swymer, 36, is disabled, he said, becoming an animator was twice as difficult for him.
Swymer was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC). This rare condition causes joint stiffness and muscle weakness throughout the body at birth. People diagnosed with this disorder can have multiple body parts affected, including their hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, feet, and knees.
Swymer’s hands and arms are impacted.
Despite muscle weakness in his hands and arms, Swymer grew up as an artist who drew, painted, and even majored in architecture in college. But his love and obsession for film, television, and animation eventually took hold. So he dropped out of college and took animation classes at a local community college in Georgia, where he was living at the time.
Swymer would eventually move to Los Angeles, where he would attend mentorships that included animation school workshops at places like Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.
“I spent a lot of time figuring out how to animate efficiently so that my disability would be a non-factor,” Swymer said. “I was very slow to start; then I got to where I was extremely fast at what I did because I had to be.
“It’s one of those situations where, because I’m different, I have to be twice as good as everybody around me.”
Despite his talent, Swymer still encountered ableism in Hollywood.
Around 2014, Swymer was offered an animation job relocating him to Vancouver for a short time. On the day he arrived at the border, instead of welcoming him into the country, he was asked to leave.
“I went to pick up my visa and was bombarded with questions about what an animator is, what I did, and all this stuff. And essentially, the decision was made that I was not an animator, and I was asked to leave despite my contract,” he said.
About six months after that incident, and realizing the difficulty of landing a gig in the industry as a disabled person, Swymer and a friend decided to make a short film. That film then inspired them to create an animation and motion studio called Keed, where they are developing an animated, sci-fi adventure short called Pure.
Working on his own projects took precedence until Swymer finally landed his first animation gig at a studio called The Third Floor. Eventually, he would be hired at Digital Domain before landing a dream role at Laika Studios a year ago this month. Swymer typically works as a pre-visualization (Previs) animator which means he collaborates with film directors during pre-production to visually map out scenes via animation before principal photography. Ultimately, Swymer helps the filmmakers imagine scenes and the final product of the film.
Swymer decided not to disclose his disability when applying for jobs as his career progressed. From his experience, as soon as he mentioned his disability, his talent didn’t matter; his disability changed people’s perceptions.
“It was always this thing that once people see me, there’s this subconscious question of, ‘Oh, can he keep up with production speed?’ And even if it’s subconscious, if a hiring manager has that view, and they are talking to four other people, that will always push me aside, right?,” questioned Swymer. “I’ve had people looking at my stuff and just outright ask me, ‘Oh, did you animate this?’
“As if I’m just making up my demo reel.”
Since 2020, people with disabilities, like Swymer, have had more opportunities in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The workforce found themselves home, and people like Swymer were animating Marvel movies from their bedrooms.
He hopes studios realize this enhances and grows their talent pool and only continues to allow people to work from home.
“It opened up a lot of opportunities for disabled people to get into the industry, including people who can’t necessarily move to L.A. or people who can’t necessarily go to the studio every day or it’s difficult for them to go to a studio every day or something,” Swymer said.
“When you open up the ability to work from home, the talent pool gets so much bigger, and it opens up the door for a lot of disabled people to get in that had not had an opportunity to do so before.”
Swymer, currently working on Wildwood at Laika, dreams of producing, writing, and directing his own movies. He also hopes to create more opportunities in animation for people with disabilities.