Rose: 'There's a lot of prejudice - I could never play a hearer'

FORMER Eastenders star Rose Ayling-Ellis has exposed the behaviour of colleagues within her industry who do not realise that she knows exactly what she’s saying when they think she can’t hear them.

- By CHRISTOPHER SHARP

Ayling-Ellis, 30, told the Observer: "I’m more aware of my environment than people think. If I'm on a film set and people are behaving badly, they think I can’t hear them.

"Actually, I'm very aware of what's going on. That's a secret power of being deaf. You know far more than people assume.”

She added that she would be completely against non-deaf people playing deaf roles as she would not necessarily get the opportunity to play someone who was not deaf.

She said: “It’s never OK. I would never get to play a hearer, so why do they get to play my role? It’s annoying when people say: ‘Well, that’s the whole point of acting’