Who are Kaylee Hottle’s parents, Joshua and Ketsi Carlson? A look at their ‘generationally deaf’ family
Kaylee Hottle, the young actor best known for playing Jia in Godzilla vs Kong, has died following a car accident. She was 18.
Here is what we know about her family.
About her family
As per reports, Born in Georgia to parents Ketsi Carlson and Joshua Hottle.
As per Hollywood Life, Kaylee’s family has four generations of deaf relatives on her father’s side. She was fluent in American Sign Language and often spoke about the importance of deaf actors getting more roles in Hollywood. In a 2024 interview with Chron, she had said, “I see a lot of positive things. There’s not a lot of deaf roles or opportunities out there. And so now we’re able, [and] I’m able to get them, and I think I’ve seen more and more growth and positivity.”
Kaylee studied at Texas School for the Deaf, a place she loved because everyone could talk to her in sign language. “It’s a great school for deaf students to go to,” she had told Chron. “I have deaf teachers, and everyone is able to communicate with me through sign language.”
Father shared the news in an emotional video
Kaylee’s father, Joshua Hottle, told TMZ about his daughter’s death after he posted a tearful video on Facebook. In the video, he explained in ASL that the accident took place in Maryland. He signed that he was in Texas when he got a call from officials about the crash, and later got another call saying his daughter’s heart had stopped on the way to the hospital, according to TMZ.
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Sharing the news, Joshua wrote, “I am taking a flight that I never would like to take,” as he was flying to Maryland to claim her body.
Her mother has also shared the an emotional video on the social media:
How Kaylee Hottle was discovered for ‘Godzilla vs Kong’
As per Chron cited by The Independent, Kaylee was scouted by casting director Sarah Halley Finn after she appeared in a commercial for the video relay app Convo. “I had a connection with Convo. They asked me to be in a commercial one day, and so I did that commercial,” she told Chron through an interpreter. “And then the assistant director of [Kong: Skull Island] saw me and they thought I matched the character description of Jia.”
According to Hollywood Life, producer Alex Garcia said finding the right girl to play Jia was not easy. “Finding the right girl to play Jia was an incredible challenge,” Alex said in a press release. “We had to look outside of the traditional casting channels to find her, and Kaylee, whom we were very fortunate to cast, had never been in a film before. But through a network of casting directors and theaters, our terrific casting director, Sarah Halley Finn, was able to locate her. And the moment we met Kaylee we knew she was the right girl for the part.”
