Robert De Niro and writer Tony Spiridakis used their own experiences of raising neurodivergent children for new movie 'Ezra'.
Robert De Niro used own life experience as inspiration for new movie Ezra
The film tells the story of stand-up comedian Max Bernal (Bobby Cannavale), who lives with his father (De Niro) and faces challenges when it comes to co-parenting his autistic son (William A. Fitzgerald) with his ex-wife (Rose Byrne).
Tony told Variety: "I didn’t know anything about autism, I thought I gotta write this down. Because of the lack of understanding that I had, I kept thinking, every day was a surprise.
"I made so many mistakes as a father, I wanted to show warts and all — the mistakes of being a father of an autistic child because I held on tight, I loved my son, and my son showed me with his wonderful spirit a way out of it, and that was a beautiful thing. So I thought it would make a good movie to see a father be that wrong."
Robert added: "I had certain things about it that I thought should be addressed. Everybody is well-intentioned, coming from a real place. It was done with a lot of love and a lot of hard work.”
Director Tony Goldwyn said he took on the project because Spiridakis is his “best friend in the world".
He added: "This is a story about destigmatising autism and disabilities in general. More so, it’s about celebrating the fact that what makes us powerful is our uniqueness and our differentness.”
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