Keivonn Woodard

When Keivonn Woodard first appears as Sam Burrell in the fourth episode of HBO’s post-apocalyptic epic The Last of Us, he’s holding a gun and gesturing for quiet by lifting a single finger to his lips. During the original 2023 run of the series’ first season, that seconds-long scene was enough for fans to spend the next week buzzing in anticipation of seeing more of Sam, an 8-year-old survivor of the show’s zombie fungus pandemic who, like Keivonn himself, is Deaf.

“I received so many positive comments,” Keivonn, now 11, tells TIME through an American Sign Language interpreter. “People were really looking forward to my second episode.”

Titled “Endure and Survive,” the following installment saw Sam and his older brother Henry (Lamar Johnson) team up with main characters Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to try to escape a hostile quarantine zone. The episode became the highest rated of the season on IMDb and cemented Keivonn as one of the show’s biggest breakout stars. “Everyone was telling me how touched they were by my performance,” he says. “They couldn’t believe I was actually Deaf.”

Read More: How HBO’s The Last of Us Tries to Capture the Video Game’s Complex Morality

While Keivonn had only one professional acting credit to his name before The Last of Us, the widespread acclaim generated by his portrayal of Sam didn’t come as a surprise to series co-creator Craig Mazin. “When [one of my shows] is airing, there are times when I’m sitting there wondering, ‘How is this going to go?’ I’m nervous,” he says. “And then there are times where I’m like, ‘I have something great that nobody knows about.’ That was a Sunday night where I just sat back and went, ‘Wait till people see this kid. They’re going to lose their minds.’”

Making Sam Deaf in the TV version of The Last of Us was a departure from the show’s video-game source material, one Mazin says was born of a desire to see more disability representation onscreen. “There are still areas of representation where Holly-wood has just failed completely,” he says. “Disability is one where we’ve really struggled.”

But it wasn’t exactly easy to find a Black child actor, 8 to 12 years old, who was Deaf and fluent in either American Sign Language or Black American Sign Language. Luckily, after Keivonn’s mom April Jackson-Woodard sent in his audition video in response to a casting call on X, it quickly became clear he was the one. “I don’t think I’ll ever get that lucky again,” Mazin says.

Last summer, Keivonn was “shocked” to learn that he had been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance, making him the youngest actor ever to be recognized in the category and the first Black Deaf actor in the Television Academy’s history to secure a nomination. “When I saw my name and face up onscreen,” he says, “it was like ... ‘Whoa.’”

Now, he’ll star in Anslem Richardson’s short film Fractal and is set to appear in Stephen Ashley Blake’s debut feature, Steal Away. To Keivonn, these are all opportunities to continue making Deaf people feel more seen. “Most people [in TV and film] are hearing, so you just see people talking,” he says. “But when I see Deaf people and they’re using sign language, I understand what they’re saying. Showing Deaf people playing Deaf characters is authentic and extremely important.”