Lizzy Clark

Prompted by Clark's role in Dustbin Baby, Clark's mother started the Don't Play Me, Pay Me campaign in attempt to stop actors "playing disabled".[2] Their mother said that actors without mental disabilities playing characters with specific conditions is the "blacking-up of the 21st century", claiming that "we need to break down these barriers. They're unacceptable and indefensible in a modern-day society, especially when there are so many good, disabled actors who are both ready, eager and able to take on these parts".[2] Clark is heavily involved in the campaign, and said that[2]

It is not just mentally disabled actors who lose out when non-disabled people are employed to act them. Audiences think they are getting an authentic portrayal of a mentally disabled person, but they're not. It's not like putting on a different accent or learning what it was like to be raised in a different era. You can't understand what it is like to have a mental disability unless you've really lived with it. When non-disabled people try to portray us, they tend to fall back on stereotypes that have done our community so much harm in the past.

Targets of the campaign include setting up a forum for mentally disabled actors, and "to see disabled actors playing parts where the least interesting thing about them is their disability."[2] As part of the campaign, their mother, who was an aspiring actress herself, asked stage schools to be more pro-active in encouraging the enrollment of students with disabilities.[3]