How can an aspie be an actor?

[Ricardo L]

There are several Hollywood actors that are supposedly aspies.

How can an aspie become an actor when it's so hard for us to correctly reproduce facial/body expressions?

Are they actually in the spectrum or is this just a media stunt?

 

[DudBomb]

There are several Hollywood actors that are supposedly aspies.

How can an aspie become an actor when it's so hard for us to correctly reproduce facial/body expressions?

Are they actually in the spectrum or is this just a media stunt?

Fake it till ya make it. Who better to fake facial/body expressions than someone who has done so most of their life. As a child I had multiple personalities depending on who I was dealing with. Not just acting different, but also forming different ideals, and behavior patterns. I've always thought I would be a good actor because of this.

 

[FreeDiver]

I think the more appropriate question is "How can an aspie not be an actor?". If you think about it. we've been acting all our lives just to get by in society. Come to think of it, I did very well in drama and theatre when I was in high school.

 

[Questella]

I tried to get into school acting but it was a total no, I speak and I sound like a robot :/ and people always tell me my voice is totally whiney which drives me up the wall, I can't stand it. I've multiple times considered smoking to roughen up my voice but so expensive and nasty and omg they give you the worst breath and the hacking, ugh... now I'm thinking of consistently practicing metal growls and fry screams because it can damage your vocal cords enough plus it's free and nongross and being able to pop out some total demonic growl will freak people out so haha, maybe they won't mess with me if they think I'm possessed by a demon.

They theater in school did let me do tech until another teacher moved in and nixed the tech crew, he said only he could do it right and the actors could change their own sets, so he sucks, I hope the school didn't keep him, he totally ruined my senior year... I saw him once on a scooter and so wished I could be one of those people that hit and run...

 

[LittleLemon]

My dream was to be an actor, but I found out I was awful at it. In high school acting classes, I was told that my facial expressions were fantastic, but I can't project my voice or have much inflection when I'm nervous. I think with training and passion, an aspie could be a good actor.

 

[Judge]

Keep in mind that traits and behaviors vary in terms of those which people have or don't have, and their amplitude. We don't have uniform strengths and weaknesses.

And in some cases playing someone else- anyone but yourself might actually appeal to an Aspie. It's not all that unrelated from masking our traits and behaviors just to pass for an NT.

Had I been self-aware of my autism much earlier in life I might have embraced acting myself. It might have been a great way to address stage fright and public speaking. Who knows? But no, not every Aspie would be up for this sort of career. That much is true.

The only well-known actors I know of who were diagnosed are Dan Akroyd and Darryl Hannah. There are just a few others in various aspects of entertainment I'm aware of.

 

[Crossbreed]

I acted in two plays in elementary school,

• 5th grade: the tin man in The Wizard of Oz and
• 6th grade: the king/princess' dad in The Frog Prince.

I was able to adhere to a script for voice and expression. It was similar to singing a part in choir. Being a singer helped me to land those parts, I'm sure. (They were both musicals.)

 

[Crossbreed]

I might have embraced acting myself. It might have been a great way to address stage fright and public speaking. Who knows?

I can be on stage with a rehearsed script or song, but I'm still not comfortable with public speaking...

 

[Adder1234]

I've always been told that I'm a brilliant actor and public speaker, but my school can't afford to do any real drama stuff so I've never been able to use it.

 

[AGXStarseed]

I remember that in the 2008 adaption of Jacqueline Wilson's Dustbin Baby, the main character - April - befriends a girl called Poppy who has Aspergers.

What made it good is because the girl they got to play Poppy (Lizzy Clark) actually has Aspergers herself. Here's what's written on Wikipedia's Dustbin Baby entry about it.

The BBC purposefully searched for an actress with Asperger syndrome to play the part of Poppy. Lizzy Clark auditioned for the part after her mother saw an advert on an autism website. Clark was selected to play Poppy, and the role in Dustbin Baby was her first experience of professional acting. Clark was the first actress with Asperger syndrome to portray a fictional character with the condition. Clark, who has since campaigned with her mother against characters with conditions such as Asperger syndrome being played by actors without the condition, said "My Asperger's made some things on the film set difficult at first, like dealing with the sudden noise of the storyboard, but I was soon so focused on acting that I didn't notice anything else."

 

[Suzanne]

Although I am not an offical aspie, I know I am ( keep in touch with offical aspies) and discovered, within the last 3 year's that I am great at acting. I mean: I can mimic really good and just forget my social anxiety, as I am in front of the audience; that is the thing with acting, is you are someone else for that moment. Oh and not acting as is thought: but doing demonstrations. I am told I am very natural.

Being an aspie is not static, which means we can learn and adapt. I grew up not being able to read facial expressions and am told that although better now, I still mistake them. I do not have a montoned voice and have a very expressive face.

One aspie I am in contact with is like me ie a very animated voice and facual expressions.

Daryl Hannah is one that it is clearly seen. I have watched her in interviews and it is like watching myself.