voice box

The procedures forced him to use a voice box to speak, and in the 2022 film, he types on a screen to communicate with Cruise's character.

Val, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, features 40 years of home recordings, including him speaking with a voice box post-cancer surgery.

"I've never heard his voice because you need air to pass through the voice box but the hole in his neck for the ventilator is below that," Teena said.

He also has a noticeably strained, raspy voice caused by spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the muscles of the voice box.

But Kennedy said he is not concerned, since his condition is based on a neural disturbance, not one in his voice box.