With the debut of Best Foot Forward, his charming new streaming show, he is opening the world of disability, family dynamics, and teen angst to a worldwide audience. The 10-episode series, loosely based on his best-selling book Just Don’t Fall, debuted on July 22 on Apple TV+. His recently released fourth book is called, Semi-Famous: A True Story of Near Celebrity. He is also a social media influencer and internet comic, with some 2.3 million TikTok followers. His fans especially appreciate his humorous Halloween costumes. Sundquist lost his leg to a rare form of cancer when he was nine years old, and the series Best Foot Forward is based on his life three years later, leaving the protection of home school and heading to 7th-grade in public school as an amputee. His parents—in real life and in the charming show—were deeply concerned that his classmates, especially the bullies, would overwhelm him. But instead, we are treated to his wit, humor, and bucks filled with resilience; qualities that we all need much more while navigating our daily lives. It was important for Sundquist, who had never seen anyone who looked like him on television, to create this experience for others. The leading character, Josh Dubin, (Logan Marmino), who is also an amputee, has the opportunity to carry this out for his generation. Apple TV+ Watching the character Josh navigate the difficulties of middle school, amplified by finding a way for his classmates to see past his disability, is filled with both comic and touching moments. He is thrilled that the new Apple TV+ series will be viewed in 30 languages in some 100 countries around the world. “In the end, this show will reach so many more people than the book did – like people in 100 countries around the world,” Sandquist exclusively tells Parade.com. “It will allow my story to reach so many more people than it ever has before." He is hopeful that in addition to his goal of providing entertainment, the new series is “for the kids who maybe have never seen someone like them on authentically depicted on screen, it could also show young people with disabilities on screen having fun,” he continues. “I hope this is refreshing and validating to be able to look at, In my case, if I had had amputees that I could watch when I was growing up, I think that it would have been really meaningful and encouraging to me.” Read on to hear how Paralympian, author, influencer, and motivational speaker Josh Sundquist has never let anything or anyone slow him down, and how his new series, One Foot Forward, will make us feel like we can soar in our own lives.
How much of you is in Logan’s character Josh Dubin in terms of stories and events? Are these episodes from your own childhood?
Josh Sundquist: Every episode has some sort of kernel that I could point you to that came from my life. For example, in the episode where we go to the movie theater, as a teenager I actually did smuggle a 2-liter of soda into the movie theater in my left pant leg. Then our job as writers on the show—as one of 12 people in the writer’s room—was to say, “OK, this is a really fun story that is relatable to people who are disabled or who are not, but those who often smuggle snacks into movie theaters, how do we make this story from my life into a 21-minute scripted family comedy that involves all of the main characters in our series?” I think each episode is formatted like that. The pilot episode is actually almost beat for beat exactly what happened in my life. I asked my parents to let me transfer to public school, I memorized the yearbook, and I said hi to everyone by name on my first day of school. I was tripped by a bully on my first day of school.
Why did you write your book, Just Don’t Fall?
Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been a storyteller. I was writing little short stories on a typewriter when I was maybe seven years old. I wrote for my high school newspaper and I wrote a column in a real newspaper, a larger newspaper when I was still a teenager. From a pretty young age, I think I always had aspirations to be a writer. Combined with having a set of experiences that I found as a motivational speaker when people heard my story, it was meaningful to them. Apple TV+ Ultimately, the satisfaction of writing the book is the same as the satisfaction of writing a show, which is to say when your own life experiences can be meaningful to other people it makes those experiences themselves meaningful.
Was it a long process for the book to become the impetus for a TV show?
Yes, it was a very long process. I wrote the book Just Don’t Fall that the show is based on in 2008. It was published in 2010. We started developing the show in 2018. So, from publication to the actual series it took 12 years, and just the series itself took four years.
What do you hope that parents and kids watching this will get out of it, besides being entertained?
First of all, I hope that they’re entertained because that’s my goal as a storyteller and entertainer. I want people to be captivated by the story, otherwise, it doesn’t really matter what your message is because they won’t hear it. I think sometimes people can get that backward and create heavy-handed or didactic entertainment. Apple TV+ Presumably, the vast majority of people watching the show will be able-bodied. For them, I hope that they see that there is a level perhaps of discomfort with people with disabilities because of a lack of a personal connection or meaningful experience with a person with a disability. So, I think that if you watch 10 episodes about this character, hopefully at times you just completely even forget he has one leg. And by the 10th episode when you find out who how lost his leg, maybe even some of your curiosity about why has waned because you’ve just gotten used to him as a human being apart from the disability. In that sense, hopefully, that is an attitude that viewers will transfer from their viewing experience to real life the next time they encounter someone who they might perceive as different in some way.
Why did you pursue Alpine ski racing? How did that happen?
It was just the sport that came along. I actually was really into playing soccer before I lost my leg. The first adaptive sport that I had the chance to learn after my amputation happened to be Alpine skiing through a program at my rehab hospital. At the local ski resort in Virginia where I grew up. And I just immediately fell in love with skiing. I loved that sense of speed and the freedom to carve my way down the mountain. I skied recreationally for a number of years. When I was in high school, I actually started skiing competitively, again because it was just sort of the competitive sport that came along. I guess I felt like I hadn’t gotten to play competitive sports the way I might otherwise have if I hadn’t had cancer and if I hadn’t lost my leg. I became aware of the Paralympics and just had an incredibly strong desire to try to make it to the international level and represent my country on that stage. So I just started training when I was in high school and kept at it until I made the team.
Did you have two best friends (Kyle and Gabriella) that Josh has in the series and who always seem to have his back?
I would say throughout my life I’ve been lucky enough to be supported by a variety of really wonderful people and friendships. I think that these two characters are both amalgamations. In other words, there’s not a specific person exactly like Gabriella that I had growing up. But rather these are characters that we created who we thought could round out and support the narratives that we were trying to tell.
When people come up to you during an event where you are speaking, what do audience members want to know about you? How do they relate to you?
Well, when you give a speech one thing that I’m always trying to do is answer the main questions. So anytime I observe that people in Q&A afterward have the same question I think “Oh man, I need to figure out how to be answering that question in the speech itself.” Then the second part of your question, though, how do people tend to relate, I think a good motivational speech in my opinion is a story that people can readily apply the metaphor to their own life. I think people tend to hear my speech and identify my story with whatever they might find difficult in their life or whatever might make them feel different. Or it might be someone in their life who I remind them of. Or it could be a parent who might have a child with a disability or has a friend who happens to have a limb difference. Apple TV+ But I find everyone has some sort of thing in their life. None of us have solved life or eliminated all of our problems. That’s what keeps me in business as a motivational speaker.
How did you find Logan Marmino, the actor who plays the 12-year Josh in the series?
Our main character presented a challenge. How do you find a 12-year-old boy who’s a great actor and has one leg? We were fortunate in my case that we found Logan through an open casting call on my Instagram. Logan knew of me through social media and had followed me for years before. He saw the post, someone tagged him in the post that I made, and just on a whim submitted an audition. He had never acted before, not even in a school play. Had never thought about acting or had an interest in acting. But thought the project sounded interesting and was – he’s very motivated to spread awareness about amputees and this felt like a vehicle for him to do that. Obviously from his first audition, we saw how special he was. Although we were lucky to get submissions from a number of talented actors, he was clearly someone who just had an extraordinary natural talent and an ability to really just listen and react naturally to other people in a scene. I think this is a rare gift. We were so fortunate to have him leading our series because he really is the heart and soul of the stories that we are telling in the show.
Not only is the cast represented, but your crew is as well with inclusion and diversity.
We wanted to bring in people with disabilities at all levels of our production. Something like 20% of our crew identifies as disabled, which is an enormous amount for the industry. Five of our writers in the writers’ room had a disability. And all types of disabilities, such as neurodiversity, physical disability and so forth.
Even though you’re in the writers’ room and you’re integral in making this, what is it like watching the series?
I’ve never been involved in a television or streaming show like this. So being able to see the behind-the-scenes of how a show is written, cast, filmed and edited was all a new and fascinating experience for me. Being able to see the end product is I guess I would just say incredibly satisfying. To see sort of the magic of how good it looks on screen and know the behind the scenes of how difficult it was to capture every shot and how much effort and thought went into lighting and color and sound and before that into casting the characters and before that into arguing in the writers’ room about literally every sentence and then it comes together in the end in a very slick and professionally appealing piece of entertainment that you can watch on your screen.
How has Best Foot Forward changed your life?
Most of the projects I’ve been involved in or the professional pursuits I’ve had have been solo projects. Even ski racing—it’s an individual sport more than a team sport. But as a motivational speaker, as a writer of books, and as a social media content creator, I work with other people at times but it’s generally just kind of me sitting at my computer or me standing on a stage by myself. Apple TV+ In this, I was working with a cast and crew of more than 200 people. The scale of it was so far beyond anything I’ve done before. Both the challenges and the opportunities that come from working with such a large and diverse group of people were extraordinary. This was a completely new experience for me. The thing that my younger brother, the real-life Matt (Roger Dale Floyd) told me during the production process when I was talking about how complicated it was to pull this thing off and how many people were involved, he said, “If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go with others.” Best Foot Forward is now streaming on Apple TV+. Next, check out the 42 best family TV shows to watch right now.
