movies with asperger characters

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Joel from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind clearly has autism.

Mr. Pignon (can't remember his first name), played by Daniel Autueil in Le Placard (The Closet). He is someone you can't have any idea at the start of the film how warm and kind-hearted he is, but even as he comes out of his shell he still makes these appalling gaffes and upsets people.

I'm not sure, but I think it's interesting to bear in mind what Hugh Laurie has consistently said about having to affect an American accent to portray Dr. House: that he always has to second guess his performance, and can never really feel as strongly in character to the extent that his co-stars can. I think it's only to be expected that an actor who constantly has to assess his performance intellectually - and feel unsure about whether he's fitting in - will come across like an Aspie.

Herbert West in the Re-Animator movies? (Or possibly Schizoid or Schizotypal Personality Disorder).

* Singular, geeky (medical/science) obsession
* Obviously highly intelligent
* No real interest in social interaction; approaches people on his terms/needs only
* Tends to say exactly what he thinks, simply stating the facts. Admittedly, he probably doesn't actually care very much whether it might be hurtful or inappropriate with most people, but sometimes he also seems genuinely oblivious to any problem.
* Random and oddball sense of humor; 'normal' humorous situations just annoy him, but he finds some things funny that other people don't.

The guy from "Rain Man", Grissom from "CSI", Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes", Spock from "Star Trek"; maybe John Arbuckle from "Garfield" has it; he's obsessed with organizing his sock drawer, can't interact with people that well, (has trouble getting a date) and stinks at golf and fishing.

Dexter from the new Showtime series "Dexter". He's an uncommon super hero as they say. A very dark character, but definitely an Aspie and Asexual as well.



-Scott

People generally agree that Howard Hughes had severe OCD, especially towards the end of his life. But not so much schizophrenic, because that presents itself in a very different way.

Whether or not he had AS, from what I hear, is open to speculation.

Another movie I saw which actually mentioned Asperger's, although only in passing, was towards the end of "Nell" where Jodie Foster's character Nell is described as having strong aspects of AS. But the question is open in this case whether this was due to AS or more to her isolated upbringing.

Lisa Simpson (the Simpsons)
Stewie Griffin (Family Guy)
Butters Stotch (South Park)
Virtually everybody on 3rd Rock from the Sun
Hank Hill (King of the Hill)

Tim

Plus I've heard that the guy who wrote the book "About a Boy" has an autistic son, so he may have meant the boy to be autistic, or actually used traits of his son's or friends of his son's who were autistic, or something.

No, just eccentric, I think...

I kind of disagree with you, in that sometimes characters are written with traits that the writers have seen in people they know (or themselves). They get some very believable characters this way, and if the traits they're portraying are from an undiagnosed autistic person, then they could have a very believable autistic/Aspie character.

Sometimes, if someone is written to be AS, even if the person writing knows a lot of autistic people, it seems as if they throw in everything but the kitchen sink to make the point ther person is AS. It seemed the kid in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" had every conceivable AS trait--does any one Aspie ever have that many traits? (Although that's an excellent book and I don't mean to put the author down in any way.)

Also the Aspie character Jerry "Hands" Espenson (spelling?) in "Boston Legal": He seems over the top for an adult Aspie, especially in his initial presentation. It's like the writers want to point out "This guy is Asperger's! Asperger's people are weird!" or something.

But he wasn't human, at least at first, so he would be different.....

Did I miss something...did Bill Watterson say that Calvin is supposed to be Aspie?

Which episodes is all this happening in? Is it this season?

Hmmm....

I think the main character from "Fever Pitch" (Also by Nick Hornby) has some aspie traits, most notably his obsession with Arsenal and encyclopaedic knowledge of the team's history. Or perhaps he's just quintessentially male.

just saw "Stranger than Fiction" with Will Farrell who plays a IRS agent. I think he may of been AS, but if not him, his friend in the movie, Dave, is definitely.