I wanted to get across that people with disabilities do experience sex and relationships
THERE are plenty of movies about lifechanging trips, but perhaps none like the trip taken in the new film Come As You Are. Inspired by a true story, it follows three young men with disabilities who flee their over-protective parents for a road trip to a brothel that caters to people with special needs, in order to lose their virginity.
The film shines a light on an aspect of life as a person with disability that is rarely captured on film.
“That is exactly what I wanted to get across,” says Asta Philpot, who inspired the movie, “that people with disabilities do have these feelings and do experience all of this, and do enjoy friendship and sex and relationships.”
In 2006, when he was 24, Asta heard about a legal brothel with access for wheelchairs during a trip to Spain and paid it a visit. He later came back with two other people, one legally blind and the other paralysed in a motorcycle accident, who wanted the opportunity of a sexual encounter. They were accompanied by a BBC documentary team.
“When we set out to do the documentary and it was all completed, we really had no vision for a narrative feature,” he says. “But I think the reason for me wanting to go ahead with it is to get it to as big an audience as possible. There is a really deep ingrained message within the movie of
Come As You Are is inspired by the true story of three friends who went on a road trip to a specialist Spanish brothel.
finds out more. unity and freedom and “The cultural conversation friendship. has shifted in such a way since
“My friend died never we were trying to scrape the having a sexual experience, money together to do it. But and from that moment the thinking at the time was on I promised myself there is no audience for a and the disability movie like this, they weren’t community that I making movies like this.” would get this out He is also aware that it is there.” unlikely three able-bodied
The film follows actors would also fill the main Scotty (Grant roles if it was given the green Rosenmeyer), Matt light in 2020.
(Hayden Szeto) and “While making the best Mo (Ravi Patel) as they movie that we could, we also hit the road to Montreal know now, we were watching accompanied by a nurse and learning. I think the played by Gabourey Sidibe, conversation is steadily but the project’s journey to the burgeoning, but the disabled screen has not been an easy community is one that is one. grossly overlooked.
“In terms of getting a movie “Hopefully people now will made, there are easier pieces be more open to stories like of material than one that has this and it will be much easier sex and disability,” says to tell a story like this with 29-year-old Grant. actors with disabilities.”
It was a five-year struggle Asta, who is also an actor, before the film finally came was just glad the film was together in 2017, but he is made at all. hopeful that it would not have “It’s a story that I wanted to been such a battle if it was get out there, I wanted it to made now. come across well and so
The cultural conversation has shifted in such a way since we were trying to scrape the money together to do it... the thinking at the time was there is no audience for a movie like this, they weren’t making movies like this.
Asta Philpot with Cherie Blair at Number 10 Downing Street in 2000 at a reception to mark the 10th birthday of the charity for disabled children, Whizz-Kidz. The film is inspired by his experiences
eloquently. The lead actors did that, they did the research diligently surrounding disability, they spent days and days and days in wheelchairs, Ravi Patel spent a lot of time researching the visually impaired and talking to people.
“I acknowledge and I admit that it’s a huge problem,” he continues. “I would love to go out there and play Batman, I would love to go out there and play Spider-Man, but those roles just aren’t for me.
“So I’ve been waiting years and years to get an acting role, and yes, I would love the lead in Come As You Are, but Grant stepped up to the plate. He
actually got the thing made and he played this part so incredibly beautifully and so did the other two actors.”
Grant spent a long time in a wheelchair to get ready to play the part, and even longer swapping notes with Asta, who has become a close friend.
Says Grant: “I will never complain, because there are people who have to be in that chair all the time and I can get up any time, so it was eyeopening in that regard.
“In terms of prep, I spent as much time as I could in the chair, I spent as much time with Asta, him coaching me on the positioning and how he used the chair and also the psychology of a character like this. It was a couple of months of us working together and making sure it was as authentic as possible.”
Asta was determined to convey the camaraderie and relationships accurately as well.
“We aren’t playing the old Coldplay in the background, or the violins,” he says wryly. “It’s a very funny film and they are taking the mick out of each other and joking around.
“People with disabilities have got to be integrated into society as much as possible, and be like every fellow human being. I don’t want to stand out, I may look different but I just want to be like everyone else.”