"Sound of Metal" star Paul Raci is Oscar-ready. It only took 40 years.

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Listen, Hollywood: Paul Raci is ready to make some noise.

For more than four decades, the 73-year-old actor has cut his teeth on stage in Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as in small roles in film and television. But screen success eluded him until Darius Marder’s electrifying hearing loss drama “Sound of Metal” (streaming on Amazon Prime), nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best actor (Riz Ahmed) and best supporting actor (Raci).

The Oscar nod “is really life changing,” says Raci, who almost fell asleep during the morning nominations announcement. “To go where I’m from and do what I have to do to pay my mortgage: go to court every day and be a sign language interpreter, and then every once in a while, get a shot in a movie -.

“It’s different because now I refuse the roles,” he adds. In addition, “I bring content to Amazon and we are in discussion to broaden the awareness of disabled and deaf actors. ”

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“Sound” follows a young punk metal drummer named Ruben (Ahmed) who suffers from sudden hearing loss and reluctantly registers in a remote commune to pick up deaf drug addicts, led by the harsh but gentle Joe (Raci). .

Although he hears himself, Raci’s parents were both deaf (his father was born deaf, while his mother lost hearing at the age of 5). Like Joe, Raci is a former drug addict who worked in sober homes similar to the one depicted in “Sound.” The character was originally written as a veteran of the Iraq War, but has been modified to reflect Raci’s own experience in Vietnam from 1969 to 1973.

“I didn’t know Paul had been on two tours of Vietnam when I watched his tape (audition), but I felt it in his eyes,” Marder says. “I didn’t know he had struggled with addiction himself, but I didn’t doubt his words for a moment. I did not understand its complex and deep connection to deaf culture, but Paul’s conviction was pure and alive, coming from a sometimes painfully acquired truth. ”

We caught up with Raci about Zoom from his home in Burbank, Calif., Where he lives with his wife and daughter when he’s not in front of Hands of Doom, a band of Black Sabbath covers in American Sign Language ( ASL).

Question: Were you the kid who practiced his Oscar talk in the mirror, or played something you hadn’t even considered growing up?

Paul Raci: It was on my mind – I remember watching the Oscars as a kid. But the thing for me is, I’ve always been put in this storytelling position. When my mom took me to the movies in 1956 to see “Love Me Tender” with Elvis Presley, what I didn’t know was that I would have to do this whole movie for her while I was sitting there. There was no captioning, no accessibility for the deaf to pop culture. Years later, my dad enjoyed watching “Bonanza” on TV and I played all the characters for him.

Then I was in rock ‘n’ roll. My mother bought my first tickets to see the Beatles, but on one condition: when I got home, I had to explain the whole concert to her. She just drank it all.

Q: What was the first professional acting concert you booked?

Crayfish: My very first film was (“Rent-a-Cop”) in 1987 with Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli. I had a line, it was for Burt Reynolds. He was setting there and I was the bartender, and I said, “Tony! Phone call! ” That was it. And from there it was downhill, my friend!

Q: Why do you think it took you 40 years to find a role like Joe in “Sound of Metal”?

Crayfish: When I graduated from the University of Illinois, I sat down with my drama teacher, Bill Raffeld. I’m going, “Bill, what’s next for me?” ” I am excited. And he said, “Paul, I don’t think you will be successful until you are much older.” I said, “Nobody wants to hear this!” What are you talking about? So he sent me to Second City to be an improv actor. He said, “Get another tool to put in your box and be patient. He just passed away last year and now this thing has happened.

So I don’t know how to explain it, other than when I moved to Hollywood, I was already 40 years old. I tried to fit in as best I could until I finally gave up. I would say to my wife, “I have to be way too specific because they certainly aren’t looking for me. Once I let go of that and became more of myself and didn’t care about it anymore, then that thing kind of morphed into a role for Paul Raci. I think maybe that’s what my old acting professor was talking about.

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Q: There is a powerful scene between Joe and Ruben (Ahmed), when Joe tells him to leave the house sober after breaking the rules. How did you approach this moment?

Crayfish: A great drama teacher once said to me: “You have to fight these tears. If you cry, then the audience won’t cry. So you can see Joe fight and fight, but he’s fighting for his own life and everyone in this sober house. When Ruben has to leave, I remember thinking, “My God, I want to run over there and bring him back. But I couldn’t do that.

We knew we weren’t going to have a lot of takes and our hearts were out there on that kitchen table. I remember looking up and there was Darius Marder, our director, tears streaming from his eyes. And Riz Ahmed broke my heart. … God, if I never have another acting experience, this is the ultimate out there.

Q: Joe thinks that deafness “is not a handicap. Not something to fix ”. Did your parents share this point of view?

Crayfish: No. You have to understand in the 1950s, all we knew was, “Your parents are deaf. They are hearing impaired. Then I moved to Los Angeles and met the great Ed Waterstreet, who founded Deaf West Theater. He was of the opinion that there was nothing to settle here. And I started to see young deaf actors say, “I’m perfect and complete the way I am. If you don’t know American Sign Language, who’s the one impaired here? They started to turn against the hearing community. So this is a change that I saw growing up: watching my parents feel oppressed by the man who hears, so that deaf people are now endowed with their own identity. It is very refreshing.