Autistic Charactor on new TNT show "Claws"

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Harold Perrineau added as Desna's autistic brother Dean

EBONY: Harold, I know that your character Dean is autistic. Were you able to shadow an autistic person or did you make him your own character?
HP: Well, because he has autism, I thought it was important to figure out what that means to be autistic. One of the things that I found out is that it’s certainly not a disease. While there are people whose brains help them learn in a very typical way, there are people who have autism and their learning process is very atypical, I think that’s the word for it. What I wanted to do was understand the range of possibility that a person who has autism might have. We talked to a doctor. I think the writers pointed me to a doctor who helped them. I have some friends who have children with autism. I talked to them a lot.


EBONY: Oh, I see.
HP: I really trolled the internet and read books. Holly Robinson Pete has a book out because her son has autism. I had all of these different sources, and it took me like months to figure out, because [with] the range of autism, you could be anywhere on the spectrum. While it offers me the opportunity to do anything, you have to find the specifics of each person. That’s where I started looking. I just talked to people [and read] … I didn’t follow anyone; I thought that would be a little creepy.