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HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — When Joe Strechay was on the set for the new Netflix series "Daredevil," he was well taken care of.
That's because lead actor Charlie Cox made sure of it.
"The lead actor sets the tone, and Charlie Cox is an amazing individual," the Huntington resident said. "He would go out of his way to check on me and make sure everything was cool with me when I was on set. It's not often that the lead actor offers to get you a cup of coffee or tea."
Strechay is blind and works as Career-Connect program manager for the American Foundation for the Blind. Though based in Huntington, he spends much of his time traveling the country and educating the blind on career exploration, job-seeking skills and navigating the employment process, and training professionals on the best ways to work with the blind.
However, last summer, he spent a couple months in New York serving as a "blindness tech" for "Daredevil," based on the Marvel comic about blind attorney Matt Murdock who moonlights as a masked superhero, using his other, ultra-enhanced senses to battle crime. As of this month, the show's entire first season is available to watch on Netflix.
Strechay consulted Cox and the writers to make sure that character Matt Murdock was believable as a blind man in the city.
"The writers were extremely talented," Strechay said. "With the script, dialogue and how the story moved, I was really impressed."
The set designer and prop master also asked him questions about the placement of items in certain scenes. He gave advice on books for Braille and technology.
He also taught Cox how to be blind, using a blindfold and all.
Cox, who is a British actor, is "one of the best people I've ever met — a really good guy, genuinely good person," Strechay said. "He listened a lot and asked questions, very intelligent questions about things. I've never met someone who studied harder than him."
He worked on orientation and mobility with the actor, training him in the use of the white cane and how to travel in the environment efficiently and safely. He taught Cox about technologies available on iPhones, and he was impressed to see the actor actually using them to check email and make calls while his face was covered for the purposes of designing his mask.
They worked on daily living skills in the kitchen.
"He filmed me in these environments to see how I was doing things. He filmed 15-minute or 10-minute pieces," Strechay said. "He told me little things I didn't know I was doing — how I raised my eyes and how I hold my cane and in different situations, move it and put it at a different angle. It was crazy impressive."
Cox also has given Strechay a shout-out in national media interviews, including "Late Night with Seth Meyers."
For Strechay, who has been in Huntington six years and is married to Jennifer Strechay, it all was both an old and a new experience. He did his graduate work at Florida State University in special education, teaching children who are blind or visually impaired things like orientation and mobility with the use of the white cane. He had a specialty in the transition from school to work.
"I taught adults who are blind or visually impaired how to travel in New Jersey for the New Jersey Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired and in Florida," he said. "But Charlie was the first person without vision loss or blindness that I taught these skills to, at this point."
For Cox's efforts to accurately portray the life of a blind man in "Daredevil," he will be honored in June at the AFB's 19th annual Helen Keller Achievement Awards.
Marvel and the entire team involved in the making of the show were supportive and wonderful to work with, said Strechay, who has had the opportunity to experience the show himself and thinks it's great.
"They released it recently with audio description," he said. "They have a track they put in later on, in between dialogue, that explains (what's happening). This is the first show on Netflix (with audio description) and all their other shows will be described in the weeks and months to come."
He sees the show as a great way of raising awareness about blindness and visual impairment. From the scenes illustrating common faux pas that occur when interacting with a blind person, to the manner in which the character approaches everyday tasks in life, the show highlights issues the visually impaired face on a daily basis. The action scenes and the superhuman way in which Daredevil senses things, like the sound of a heartbeat from across the room, are more the stuff of comic books than reality, Strechay said. But still, it's a breakthrough.
"It's everyday images of him checking the clock or how he deals with different situations when someone nods their head to answer him, or if they put out their hand to shake it and they don't tell him," Strechay said. "Any time you take a person with a disability and put them as a lead character in a show, it brings discussion and allows persons with disabilities to feel they're part of society."
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Information from: The Herald-Dispatch, http://www.herald-dispatch.com
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