What it’s like to look for work when you’re autistic

I WAS turned down for every job I applied for until I decided to become an actor, writes Julius Robertson. Now I want to see autistic people playing all kinds of roles in film and television.

AUDIENCES have had the chance, through watching ABC’s Employable Me, to see how challenging it can be for neuro-diverse people to find work.

As someone with autism, I’ve had the experience of being turned down for every job I applied for.

It can make you feel microscopic.

I’ve experienced employers underestimating my intelligence. They also don’t like it that people with autism tell the truth at all times. I did volunteer work for Oxfam, which I really liked, and I taught tennis to disabled kids. But not getting paid for your work makes you feel that you’re not worth anything.

When I was a kid, my mum told me that I had autism but that the label didn’t define me; that a label is just something on the side of a jam jar. She said that I had ‘Julius Syndrome’, and that’s what made me wonderful and special, and told me all the things that I can do are unique, like remembering every match point from any tennis game ever played or every movie ever made by my favourite actors. She always calls me ‘Wikipedia with a pulse’, which I find a bit cringey. Being autistic doesn’t make you a genius. If I was a genius I would know how to act normal.

Film buff Cain prepares for job interviews with his mum Gretchen. Cain is autistic and his quest to become a movie critic features in the final episode of Employable Me. (Pic: Supplied)

School was like a prison for me; I called it Guantánamo Bay. I was lonely and got bullied a lot. Teachers told me I was lazy or stupid, and girls reject you constantly for being different. That can break you down.

After school and volunteering, I decided to study acting. Autistic people are acting all the time; we’re acting trying to be normal. I love pretending to be other people too, because it gives me a rest from myself. I’m an actor working on BBC medical drama Holby City now.

Finding my career path and scoring this role is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’m playing an autistic character, although Jason is very different to me. He’s more of a geek than me and doesn’t have my quirky sense of humour. He’s an enjoyable person to play because he’s so unpredictable, and his dry humour is entertaining. I hope by playing Jason on a big BBC prime time show — which is seen by at least 4 million people a week — I am helping to take the stigma out of autism.

The other actors on the show, especially Catherine Russell and Jemma Redgrave, have been so kind. And as I told the producer, the ratings have soared up since I started (I also told him that I’m the only guy on Holby you would swipe right on. I’m a I’m a hard 7 baby — ha!).

I wish all employers could celebrate the many strengths autistic people have, instead of constantly concentrating on our weaknesses. I think autism is a gift in many ways, because you think with originality, style and panache. Why does everyone want to be the same? It’s good to be different. My producers understand that sometimes I overload and need down time. I’m not being rude, I just need to cool my engines. I can also get very anxious; that comes from trying to fit in all the time and feeling I’ve failed. People just need to be kind and not so judgmental.

Actor Catherine Russell with Julius Robertson on the set of Holby City. She’s been a supportive co-worker. (Pic: YouTube)

Now I just want other directors to think outside the neurotypical box and cast me in other roles. I’d like to play baddies in James Bond films for example. I’d make a good baddie with my evil chuckle. Or a crazy, wacky comic type opposite Steve Martin. I just played the head of the Oxford student union in British detective series Endeavour, which was so sensational as I was playing an ordinary guy.

But I also wish directors would stop casting neurotypical people to play autistic characters though, like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. To me, that’s as insensitive as getting white actors to black up. It’s also inauthentic and uncreative. It’s what directors and producers do when they’re being lazy. In the future, people will look back at neurotypical people playing autistic characters as being just as embarrassing a white people blacking up to play Othello, when there are so many good black actors. There are so many good autistic actors out there. I also think Hamlet was on the autistic spectrum; he was so anxious, had what looks like obsessive compulsive disorder and couldn’t read social situations — like how he ignored Ophelia’s pain. I’d like to play the first autistic Hamlet, if only someone would give me a chance.

Autism is a condition that can come with terrible loneliness; it would be alleviated if neurotypical people remembered to invite us out sometimes. The general misconception is that autistic people have no emotion, but I have autism and I love affection. I have deep and passionate feelings. Sometimes I’m not good at reading them in other people, but I’m keen to learn and I’d jump at an acting role involving romance. In real life, girls seem afraid of dating boys on the spectrum, and they’re missing out if you ask me (I know I would make the world’s most devoted boyfriend — but maybe I can get a girl to come with me to the Oscars when I win?).

My advice to other autistic people is to find out what you are good at and just keep doing it. Don’t allow yourself to feel bullied, because bullies are small minded. Even though so many people are on the spectrum — diagnosed and undiagnosed — autism is not talked about or shown on screen enough. But we can stop showing autistic people as victims, and instead, celebrate our humour, and all of the many things that make us unique and interesting.

Employable Me airs on ABC TV on Tuesday, April 17 at 8.30pm, and can be streamed on ABC iView. Holby City screens on Foxtel’s BBC First channel.

Originally published as What it’s like to look for work when you’re autistic