The new show As We See It, debuting today on Amazon Prime Video, is very personal for creator Jason Katims, the guy behind Parenthood and Friday Night Lights.
The series is about three adults with Autism, and the various challenges they face trying to navigate work and love and life — a situation, Katims tells ABC Audio, that his own son experienced not too long ago.
“I have a son on the spectrum, and a few years ago, he was just getting to that age of being a young adult,” he explains. “And I realized, well, you know, there’s a lot that you see about and hear and read about children on the spectrum, less so about what the experience is really like for an adult on the spectrum. So it was a subject matter that was very personal to me that I was learning about. And that’s always a good thing to write about.”
Likewise, Katims, made sure the actors — Rick Glassman, Albert Rutecki and Sue Ann Pien — had a personal connection with the subject matter, which he accomplished by “casting the three leads who all identified themselves as being on the spectrum” so they could “make it feel as real and authentic as possible.”
“By making those choices,” he says, “not only is it real and authentic, but it’s also incredibly delightful to watch.”
And just like his other shows, As We See It will make you laugh and make you cry, a track record that Katims sometimes finds a little “weird.”
“I don’t know what I feel about it. I think that, though, the thing that nobody ever talks about is in order to have your emotions available to cry, you have to first laugh.”
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