INTERVIEW WITH RADHA MITCHELL:
Does your character have the same syndrome as Josh Hartnett’s character?
Josh is more affected, but both have Asperger’s Syndrome. Asperger’s is a form of autism in which case you can be quite functional within the world, but certain things just don’t make sense to you. It’s hard to communicate with other people. So, obviously, it’s hard to be in a relationship.
The story’s based on the lives of two people who really were in a relationship, and the guy who really did start a group for people that were autistic. Before he started this group in America, I don’t think there was any connection between people. They just sort of were autistic by themselves. He made a forum and now there are places in different cities all over America where if you’re autistic, you meet once a month and you can just sort of discuss it and hang out with people, and not have to pretend to be normal, which is what most people have to do. Just to be a part of the world, [they] have to disguise themselves. So we went to some of those groups and met a lot of people, some of them adults, some of them kids. And that was the form of research.
I guess my character was sort of based on a woman who got by in the world and had only recently been diagnosed. Whatever was autistic about her was less obvious to see. But she does have the emotional issues (laughing). She’s quite intense. She can be happy in one moment and completely upset the next. And it’s beyond her control, in a way.
That must be extremely difficult to handle when you aren’t aware you have some kind of syndrome.
I think it is a relief for people to be diagnosed. And at the same time, it’s a box to be put in. It can either be positive or negative. I think ultimately the struggle for people who are autistic is to accept themselves. You can see why it’s such a struggle. I hung out with this girl who I loved, Emily. She went to a normal school but was always called “the freak.” She spent most of her lunch times reading a book, and prided herself on her toughness and her ability to not care what people said about her and so on. Which is just a really difficult way to live. But I think what’s interesting about that film is that most of the characters within it are autistic. It’s not like, “Wow, there’s this weird autistic girl in the story.” It’s like, “There’s this weird normal person in the story.” There’s only one person who is “normal.” I think people that are autistic – or anyone – are going to relate to this slightly different vision of reality.
Every character you play is completely different from what you’ve done before. Do you deliberately avoid any project that seems similar to something you’ve already done?
I guess on a certain level there’s a desire to constantly change the story. I think it’s just more that I like characters. I’m sort of a character actor, so I have the opportunity to be different things. And somehow, that’s a point of focus. So yeah, I probably have but it hasn’t been consciously articulated until just now.
What sort of character are you dying to sink your teeth into?
To be honest, it’s not even the character that attracts me to the story, it’s the story itself. I think “Finding Neverland” was a beautiful script on paper. “Man on Fire” was a script that I read and thought, “Well this is really pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable in these big budget movies.” It’s very risqué in a way. And this movie, “Mozart and the Whale,” that was definitely the characters that attracted me to that movie. They are really interesting characters. “Melinda and Melinda” was, I guess, a combination of working with Woody Allen and playing this really interesting character. What’s going to make a good film is a combination of so many different factors. And it’s very much about who you are going to be working with, as much as the character you’re going to play.
