Ep. 67: Autistic Representation on the Big Screen ft. Ezra Associate Producer Alex Plank
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What is the purpose of Making the Shift podcast and who are the hosts?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuroaffirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift?
Let's do this!
Hello and welcome to Making the Shift. We cannot wait to introduce you to our special guest today, Alex Plank. And Chris, tell us everything we need to know about. I am
gonna give you all of the details. So we do have a very uh prominent and special guest with us, Alex Plank. He's the creative mind behind many of your favorite shows. You might recognize his work. On the good doctor and the bridge. That's not all. Alex is a beloved figure in the autistic community as the founder of Wrong Planet, an online hub for autistic individuals to connect and discover more about themselves. As an associate producer of Ezra, Alex brought his expertise and passion for neurodiversity to the film, ensuring authentic and meaningful. representation. Welcome. Alex.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about Ezra. And uh to uh do your podcast.
Yes, and I should say, you know, we are shout out to our mutual friend, Chloe Estelle, who is um w works as a coach in my parent program and I know she's a friend of yours and she really connected us. and invited us to the screening of Ezra, which we were so fortunate to attend, which was just so fun because we're in LA, but we never do these like fun movie kind of events. But it was it was really special to be a part of that.
Yeah, we had a big turnout at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills and it was amazing. Uh event put on by Love and Autism, a nonprofit that I really support, as well as uh our distributor, Bleaker Street Films.
Yeah, it was so awesome to get to see the film and I figure kind of a good place to start would be I would love to know just how did you get involved in this project to begin with? What did that look like?
Well, uh the first involvement was I got an email from Tony Golan, the director, you know, sort of asking if uh I would be willing to talk to it when they think I mentioned this in our QA that you attended that I I didn't respond to the email because my executive functioning is bad. So he was he emailed me a second time. Saying, Hey, I really want to talk to you, like hey. Can you, you know, talk to us? And so I did and you know it Uh He really loved my perspective and he really wanted to be inclusive, which aligns with my priorities. Um, he wanted to make sure that we had an autistic actor playing the autistic character, which again is another uh important thing to me.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's so funny 'cause even just not responding the first time, like I'm sure we've all had moments where of that. But like this was such a Yeah, but usually they
usually they don't email you again and you just lose out on the job.
Yeah. So then what did your involvement look like then from like the beginning stages?
Well, from the start, um and the start of m pre production, um, I would say, um, would be helping Tony uh figure out how to best cast the film looking at watching Auditions from every actor. We had over a hundred kids who auditioned for it. um looking through trying to give everyone an idea of of what to expect on set, uh sort of setting up all those things.
Yeah, it sounded like making sure that you were accommodating,
you know,
all Yeah, I mean
I wouldn't use the word accommodating in this i well, I mean it is the right word I guess technically, but I you know, I'd like to say just more of like empowering the you know the the people who are Who are auditioning because you everyone Um Everyone deserves a chance to have, you know, their best work seen and and to Беспекта in the процес, which I think is really important.
Yeah, absolutely. I I feel like too, you know, with with the cast and, you know, allowing for some flexibility, maybe that w had to do with different locations or different setups with the trailers or schedule. Oh yeah. I mean
That was that that is a uh uh the I didn't even get there 'cause I was just talking about before we uh shot.
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Chapters
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2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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