Kaylee Hottle, who played a major role in Godzilla v Kong and the sequel Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, has died at the age of 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her death was confirmed by her father, Joshua, in a video shared on Facebook. The stream was in American Sign Language (ASL) as the Hottle family is all deaf. \u201cI am taking a flight that I never would like to take,\u201d is the name of the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hottle was killed in a car crash in Frederick, Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her death was also shared by the Texas School for the Deaf, where Hottle attended. \u201cOur hearts are with Kaylee\u2019s family, friends, classmates, and everyone who knew and loved her during this incredibly difficult time,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hottle was known for playing Jia in the 2021 hit adventure Godzilla v Kong. The character was a deaf orphan who forms a bond with Kong. She starred alongside Rebecca Hall, who played her adopted mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hall and fellow co-star Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd both learned ASL so they could communicate directly with Hottle on set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think some people see ASL and deafness as a barrier or a gift, but it\u2019s just a language, and deaf is just deaf,\u201d Hottle said in an interview. \u201cWe can do many things, just not hear. We need more deaf actresses and crew in the industry for people to see and normalize it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hottle also appeared in the sequel Godzilla v Kong: The New Empire, which was released in 2024. The role gained her a nomination for best performance by a younger actor at the Saturn awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m acting in monster movies as a deaf person,\u201d she said in another interview. \u201cI want deaf people to know that they can do that too, just like me. There are no limits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her co-star Millie Bobby Brown paid tribute today on social media. \u201cI\u2019m so devastated to hear this,\u201d she wrote. \u201cYou will be deeply missed Kaylee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hottle also appeared in a number of commercials and in an episode of the rebooted Magnum PI television series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kaylee Hottle, who played a major role in Godzilla v Kong and the sequel Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, has died at the age of 18. Her death was confirmed by her father, Joshua, in a video shared on Facebook. The stream was in American Sign Language (ASL) as the Hottle family is all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":52731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"theguardian","_post_source_url":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[10618,9951,3989,5673,13175,12636,8193,7234,5241,10205,920,5468,5455,11355,6225,6980,11493,9515,1821,2603,9029,11158,6736,5349,5355,8033,3954,10353],"class_list":["post-52730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-age","tag-bobby-brown","tag-bond","tag-car","tag-car-crash","tag-crash","tag-death","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-episode","tag-facebook","tag-family","tag-flight","tag-friends","tag-gift","tag-interview","tag-killed","tag-kong","tag-maryland","tag-movies","tag-orphan","tag-school","tag-social-media","tag-texas","tag-video","tag-will","tag-x"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52732,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52730\/revisions\/52732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}