In the Fox Searchlight film, Adam (Dancy) finds himself in completely unknown territory when he becomes interested in Beth (Rose Byrne), a pretty young writer who moves into the same apartment building. In order to prepare to play Adam, Dancy studied Aspies (as they like to be called) in order to figure out how to correctly convey his character's anxiety in dealing with co-workers, acquaintances - and the opposite sex. Romance is hard for everyone, but in the case of Adam, it's a real minefield.
Exclusive Hugh Dancy and Max Mayer Interview
Why did you choose to do a movie about a character with Asperger's syndrome?Writer/Director Max Mayer: "Because I was listening to a radio program and I heard a young man on the radio about six years ago who had Asperger’s Syndrome. He was talking about how life felt to him and the challenges in his life and how he looked at peoples' behavior and couldn't figure out how they knew when to talk and when not to talk and when to smile and how close to stand to one another and how to gesture, and all kinds of things. And it was like life was a joke that he wasn’t in on. It moved me a lot so I thought I should research this a little bit and figure out (a) why it moved me and (b) what it was."
"So I did, and the more I researched it, the better metaphor it felt like to me for human relationships in general. It seemed like a good leaping off point to write a story about love and about intimate connection and all that, in a way that was kind of graphic and meant to be sort of showing and wasn't entirely internal, actually."
You listened to this radio interview six years ago, and you never let go of the idea of doing a film about a guy with Asperger's syndrome?
Max Mayer: "I mean I researched it for about five or six months and then outlined it for another four months or so, and then wrote the first draft in another three or four months. So that's probably, you know, now four and a half years ago or something like that. And then we rewrote it for a year and a half or so, and then we made the movie."
Did you know anything about Asperger's before you started?
Hugh Dancy: "No, nothing at all."
Did you do your own research or did you rely on everything Max had done with the script?
Hugh Dancy: "No, that would have been just basically to me an insane alliance and hoping that his intent came across, which would’ve not worked. So yes, I did. I did do my own research, although I think inevitably we followed similar lines. In fact, I think anybody would who set out to really learn about Asperger’s and certainly try and understand it in the way that we were. I had a limited time to do that in, but it’s certainly true that the more I learnt and the more I absorbed, the more I realized I could go back to Max's script and kind of hang what I'd learnt on the framework of his writing. The more detailed my understanding of it became, the more I realized how specific he had been in his writing. And although he had not tried to write everything down about Adam, his writing encouraged me to think about the character as an individual, to be precise in my choices and my thinking of Adam. So, I think, basically what I'm saying is that the further I got into it, the more in tune we became so that when we were eventually on set, we were very much of a mind."
Did you meet with people with Asperger’s?
Hugh Dancy: "Yes."
Was there anyone in particular who influenced how you played Adam?
Hugh Dancy: "No."
Then how did you determine how to play him?
Hugh Dancy: "Some of that was prescribed by the script, some of it wasn't, certain physicalities, the tone of voice, those kinds of things. I did observe several different people, but there really wasn’t a moment when I looked at one person and thought, 'Oh, you've got it. I’ll have you,' so to speak. I think that in fact in meeting all the people, all the various Aspies that I did, the main realization and the most important revelation was the differences between all of them and the range of personalities, the variety in expression and humor and different symptoms and so on. And I think I realized it at about the same time that I now knew enough and I’d absorbed enough to kind of trust my own instincts in selecting what I would need without looking for validation in any one other person, without needing a specific example. I was quite assiduous about going back to the script and making sure I wasn't veering too far from that. So pretty much I showed up on day one and just hoped that my subconscious had made some decent choices.'
You said 'humor'...
Hugh Dancy: "Yes. There's a humorous appreciation of many things, including themselves. In fact, watching the movie with people with Asperger’s, there's a lot of laughter and recognition of some of it. That doesn’t mean to say that they're going to tell a joke brilliantly. There's not necessarily the perfect timing or anything, but that's far from being humorless."
This must have been a difficult role for you because of having to play someone who doesn't react or express himself the way most people do.
Hugh Dancy: "I think he absolutely is reacting but he’s not always catching on. He's not always getting it, but he’s certainly making huge attempts to get it. Far more than the rest of us who can kind of zone out and zone in, Adam does not zone out, at least not in that way. And so the thing for me was to try and capture that nuance, the nuance that is there of his attempts to kind of ride the wave of all the different information that's coming to him."
Max Mayer: "It’s sort of horrifying that it is, in some ways it’s like always being in crisis."
Hugh Dancy: "You're always in crisis management mode in a way, or he is a little bit."
