Interview: Asta Philpot

A conversation with the inspiration for the upcoming comedic road movie Come As You Are.

In the past, I have championed small independent movies I felt deserved whatever little boost my blog could give them including interviews with Destin Daniel Cretton for his movie Short Term 12, Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay for the movie they wrote The Invitation, and Rob Meyer and Luke Matheny for their movie A Birder’s Guide to Everything.

This week, I am featuring a series of interviews with some of the filmmakers behind a wonderful indie comedy Come As You Are which opens today.

Plot Summary: Three young men with disabilities hit the road with a jaded nurse driver to a brothel in Montreal catering to people with special needs. Remake of the acclaimed Belgian film Hasta La Vista.

Here is my interview with a truly remarkable human being and inspiration for the movie Come As You Are: Asta Philpot.

Scott Myers: As I understand, Come As You Are is an adaptation of a 2011 Belgian film, which is an adaptation of a documentary which is based upon your own life experience. Let’s start there. What were those life events which ultimately inspired the story?

Asta Philpot: When I was growing up, I had a really good friend called Andriano. We both went to a school for people with physical disabilities, and we always talked about what young people talk about, especially when you’re coming into puberty ‑‑ sex and relationships and stuff.

To cut the really long story short, Andriano had muscular dystrophy, and it’s a muscle‑wasting disease. I found out one day that he’d passed away because he had really bad pneumonias, and he died without ever having that experience that he wanted. Even though he’d expressed that to his mom, he just wasn’t allowed to do it. It was blocked. That’s why I went on the mission I did.

A few years later, me and my parents went on holiday to Spain, and we were told about this amazing place down the road called Eclipse from where we were staying. We were told it was a night club, so as far as we knew, we were just going for a night out and a dance.

Lo and behold, it was a brothel, and that’s when the journey really started. I lost my virginity, and I felt different from then on.

I said to my mom and dad on the way back from that particular vacation that, “I need to do something about this, because there are so many barriers and taboos not only surrounding disability, but surrounding pretty much every aspect of life that people are just so uncomfortable about talking about.”

I just really wanted to get it out there and say, “Hey, people with disabilities have feelings, and are human.”

Scott: Your parents…I’m curious about that moment in time, you’re there in this place and you realize it’s a brothel, what kind of conversation was that? Was that an awkward thing?

Asta: [laughs] No, not really, because my parents knew that I was wanting this experience with another human being, and we talked about it at length. My daddy even went out and researched where we lived, the local sex scene, the brothels. It was really seedy, and because in England it’s illegal, so it’s on the dark side, if you like.

I know prostitution is out there as being on the dark side anyway, but I experienced a completely different thing when I visited this place.

I know I spoke to my parents about everything. I was open about the feelings that I needed, and it’s not common that, because I still get emails today from people with disabilities saying, “I really want to have sex, but my parents just won’t entertain it.”

Your parents, when you’re that age or younger, they’re the gate keepers. They’re the ones that brought you up, and assisted you, and brought you up with this disability, so they’re the ones that are going to support you through that as well, whether you like it or not.

I don’t want to generalize. We’re in the 21st century now, and people just don’t get disability. People come to shake my hand, and you see the fear in their faces, and I’m like, “Wow. I’m just a human being like you. You’re not going to break me.”

Scott: I saw an interview you gave. I think it was at the debut of the South by Southwest Film Festival for Come As You Are. There, you said this:

“We all have judgments, and we all judge each other by first appearance, when in actual fact, we’re all born the same way, and we all breathe the same oxygen in the planet. As long as we see each other as human beings, just loving one another, then I think that this game can work.”

What a wonderful sentiment. I wondering if maybe you could expand on that.

Asta: Yeah. I think that there’s something inherently gone wrong on this planet. We were born as we were. If you’ll excuse the pun, we came as we are.

What’s gone wrong between when we were born and now? The world is such a dark place where, every day, we’re force‑fed negativity and all this stuff rammed down our throats, from corona virus, to wars, to Trump doing his thing, to Boris Johnson here doing his thing in the UK.

When are we actually going to sit down and say, “Hey, why not practice loving each other as human beings?” I’m sure that we could all get along a lot better, and the planet as it was meant to be would actually start flourishing again, if we all were to get each other and love each other, because it’s gone. It just doesn’t happen anymore.

I go down the street and you see people miserable as hell, and I think, “You know what? What the fuck have you got to be miserable about?” I’m stuck here with, I’ve been told, funny looking arms, and this or that, I can’t feed myself, I can’t wipe my own ass, but hey, I wake up in the morning, I thank God that I’m alive.

Every opportunity comes to me, whether it be negative or positive, to me, is a positive because that’s the route we were supposed to take in life, but people have lost the plot out there.

Scott: That’s why movies like Come As you Are are so important, because of its humanity. It’s a story of three young men, each of them with their own unique set of physical disabilities, who go on a journey to Montreal ‑‑ the movie is relocated to the United States ‑‑ who go on a journey to Montreal where they heard there’s a brothel that basically specializes in servicing people with special needs.

That journey along the way between these three people who barely know each other, who get to form a sense of understanding about themselves, and as a group, as a people. Isn’t that right, basically, it’s the journey which is the important thing?

Asta: Absolutely. It’s an incredible journey of bonding, and empathy, and understanding, and struggle. It’s got it all. Richard Wong, and Grant, and the other actors have really nailed it, my vision.

I’m not sure I’m so much like Scotty, but I get him. [laughs] There’s that frustration, and on one level, there is a part of me in Scotty because I do get frustrated with feeling separate to human society. I almost feel like sometimes it’s me and them, almost like I’m from some kind of parallel universe.

It’s funny. I’m always on the lower level because I’m sat down, so sometimes it does feel like I’m in a parallel universe. I think the movie is just details. The first time I saw it and I came out of the theater, I was just absolutely blown away.

Just the fact that something like this can be made and is going to get out there, however far it goes, it’s what the world needs. It’s what people need to see.

Scott: I absolutely concur.

Asta: Thank you.

Scott: We need stories like this. First of all, it’s hugely entertaining. There’s that, but we need stories that put a face on, I guess you could say, The Other, people who have differences. I think you said the word empathy. That’s a big part of it.

Asta: Yeah, it is entertaining. It’s really funny, and that’s part of my life as well. I mock myself, and my life is funny. I have a laugh with my fiancé, and I have a laugh with my family. You just can’t take yourself too seriously. That’s probably where things have gone wrong a little bit. People take themselves far too seriously.

Scott: The movie launches in select theaters and digital platforms on February 14.

Asta: Yeah.

Scott: I’m curious now, as you think back on this, how the journey began, that fateful trip to Spain when you were a youth, and then there was a documentary, and another movie, and now this movie which is receiving strong critical praise. What are your feelings now about this next chapter in your story?

Asta: I just want it to carry on, Scott. I want to get the movie out there, and I want to speak to people. I want to speak to audiences, and I want to change the paradigm and shift people’s perceptions.

I’ll give you a great example. We were at Mallorca Film Festival, and the film got shown there on the opening night. I got brought behind the screen on stage, ready to go out with the other guys, and we had a six‑minute standing ovation.

When it was done, me and Grant went back out through the corridors to get out of the theater, and people were stopping us every second, saying, “You’ve changed our lives. You’ve changed the way we see our lives. We should all be more grateful for what we have in life.”

That was about nine o’clock at night, it finished. We were up to like 3:00 AM, talking to people that were just absolutely blown…I had this one woman come up to me in a bar after we were done. She hadn’t had one drop of alcohol, and she was crying her eyes out because something shifted within her that she’s not getting from the outside world at the moment.

I don’t know what’s happened, but we need to start creating transformational media that are actually going to make our fellow human beings start to feel good about not only their lives, but about themselves.

Scott: That’s the power of story, isn’t it?

Asta: Right.

Scott: That’s one of the things that’s so wonderful about the film is that each of these three young men have a transformational experience and so you come away from that feeling like, “If they can change, I can change.”

Asta: Absolutely. There’s hope, isn’t there?

Scott: I guess so, yeah.

Asta: I was reading your Twitter before I came on, and I love the pinned post you’ve got at the top.

[This is the text of that tweet: “More than EVER, we need good storytellers. Put a human face on The Other. Shed light on a Deeper Truth. Engender Empathy. Fan the flames of Hope. Motivate people to Act. Make us Laugh. Make us Cry. Make us Thrilled. Make us Think. But mostly, make us feel our Shared Humanity.”]

Asta: We do have to fan the flames of hope. If we don’t, then what’s the point? What’s the point in even waking up in the morning if we don’t have hope?

Like I said to you, every day I wake up, and I thank God I’m alive. I’m full of gratitude. I’m grateful. Yes, I was born in a wheelchair, yes I have physical attributes that look different to “normal people,” but hey, I am happy in my skin.

Scott: I’m going to post a series of articles this week featuring your interviews, leading up to the movie’s release on the 14th, to just try and do whatever I can, minimal part to try and publicize the thing for you.

Asta: No, man. Don’t undermine what you’re doing. You’re one of my soldiers. I call myself a lamplighter. You’re one of my fellow lamplighters now, so I’m grateful to you, sir.

I asked one of the producers of the movie Kelly Waller (Chicago Media Angels) what attracted her outfit to provide financial support to Come As You Are, a project which had been turned down by 80 other production companies. Kelly said this:

“I was motivated to bring this story to Chicago Media Angel investors as there are members of our group who have loved ones with their own special needs and I thought they would be interested in telling the story. I personally wanted to tell the story because it brings a very human need to light with humor which creates empathy for a challenge most of us take for granted.”

Here is a trailer for Come As You Are:

Los Angeles 
Laemmle Glendale

New York
Cinema Village

Boston
Apple Cinemas

Chicago
Gene Siskel

Cleveland
Tower City Cinema

Columbus
Gateway Film Center

Dallas
Harkins Southlake

Denver
Harkins Northfield

Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne Cinema Center

Kansas City
Screenland Tapcade

Napa Valley
Cameo Cinema

Oklahoma
City Rodeo

Phoenix
Harkins Arizona Mills

San Francisco
Roxie Theater

The Villages, Florida
Old Mill Playhouse

The movie will also be available on digital platforms on February 14:

iTunes/AppleTV
FandangoNow 
Goldwyn

Movie Website

Do me a favor: Spread the world about this funny, heartfelt movie. Then do yourself a favor: Watch Come As You Are to be entertained and moved.

To read my interview with screenwriter Erik Linthorst, go here.

To read my interview with director Rich Wong, go here.

To read my interview with actor-producer Grant Rosenmeyer, go here.