Marlee [Matlin] is who she is and just happens to use an interpreter. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a helper. I'm just Jack, the interpreter guy.

When I grew up, there were no teletypewriters or video calls, so I primarily interpreted phone calls. At that time, where I lived, it wasn't embarrassing to have Deaf parents it was cool to be able to speak a different language than everyone else.

When Marlee [Matlin] won her Oscar, she said, and I just want to thank my parents. When I was saying those words for her, I knew my parents were in the audience. I was saying it for her and a little bit for myself, even though I wasn't saying it in sign language and they didn't understand what I was saying.

A lot of times, if you watch sign language interpreters, there can be some lag time issues. When that happens, I think you lose the hearing audience.

Being in the hearing world was more of a challenge than being in the Deaf world, because I had to learn how to write and communicate in a way that I hadn't experienced growing up.