Everybody loves a story about a person who gives it their all. Then they fall down, but get up and try again. And again, until the world notices. This is the story of comedian George Steeves who made waves at the famed Edinburgh Comedy Festival. George also happens to be gay and have high-functioning Asperger’s – a neuro-developmental condition characterized by difficulties with social interactions and non-verbal cues. His journey is the subject of a touching documentary film titled My Life With Asperger’s.

Enter Arden Pryor (Fat Pizza, where he played Rebel Wilson’s mom), the executive producer of My Life With Asperger’s, whose mission was to NOT produce a “cause film.” It’s a human story about a man with a goal. “The characters must work without the gay stuff,” states Pryor. “Steeves is a unique mix of  innocence and determination,” he continues. Although much of Pryor’s work focuses on the LGBT+ communities and he actively promotes their causes outside his work, he maintains they aren’t his exclusive audience.

On Creativity

He compares his creative process to The Beatles’ songwriting process where they wrote dozens of songs and selected the best ones. He’s never short of ideas and writes everything down. “I pursue the ones that don’t leave me alone and keep coming back.”

Arden Pryor. Photo by Zoey Rose Sanford

Arden began his entertainment career doing stand up comedy in his native Australia before transitioning to the screen – mainly in documentaries and hit shows like Fat Pizza and Fix Her Up. Currently, he is first and foremost, a story producer, who views each story “objectively from an audience perspective, but also from the impartiality of what the story is.”

The filmmaker onboarded My Life With Asperger’s during production. He credits director and executive producer, Julianna Brudek, as being the main steward of the project.

Producing partners Arden and Julianna will take a similar narrative approach to their latest project about Ed Buck and the deadly party and play culture. “We will tell the story of Ed Buck and how meth turned him into a monster. Through his story, we aim to educate people on party and play culture and why meth is killing gay men by the tens of thousands. It’s made for everyone to watch and learn something, or to see themselves in it. We want to show people how meth is destroying LGBT lives and our communities.”

Pryor’s key goal in his work is to “raise voices we don’t often hear.” He ideally works on the “loudest” projects where he can insert a “personal angle or viewpoint” in order to honestly tell a story. “You need to be able to say something different or something that’s unique to your experience in that subject for it to work.”

Arden Pryor is certainly a versatile writer with projects ranging from kids’ animation to a “very dark R-rated comedy. I think my voice tends to always have a little bit of a sass to it. There’s always just a little bit of a bite to what I write. Sometimes it’s not so soft.”

“I like writing anti-hero characters that are off the beaten track. I’m not very interested in telling the stories of ‘Susie from the suburbs.’ I’m very attracted to unusual characters that are damaged and hurt. People always think that a character’s damage or hurt has to be dark and dramatic, but they actually make really good comedic characters. I do like projects that kind of blur between the two. I think even with My Life With Asperger’s, there are some really touching moments in there. There’s some sad moments and some really funny moments.”

Pryor’s experience as a stand up comic allowed him to immediately gauge audience reactions. When he attended a sold out screening of My Life With Asperger’s, he had a similar experience of reading a crowd.

“You get a feel for how they’re absorbing the story. There were a couple of people crying in certain parts and that was very touching for me because it meant we did our job. We took people through an emotional journey. That’s ultimately what you want; people to feel and experience stuff and give them a point of view that they haven’t seen before.”

On Sexuality

Arden Pryor understands that understanding one’s sexuality is an evolving process. After his comedy show, George Steeves was on a show called Love On The Spectrum which is about neuro-divergent singles looking for love with people in their community.

George Steeves

“It had sexual content as it was about George having a sexual awakening. Some people who saw the first show, especially parents of people with Asperger’s, didn’t want to see their sons and daughters as having a sexuality.”

“There was a woman who complained that it should have been called Sex On The Spectrum because it was so filthy and uncomfortable for her. Most people with Asperger’s do have sexual urges. They just usually come into their sexual awakening a little later in life,” notes the filmmaker.

Arden Pryor is thankful for the shifting away from LGBT character stereotypes on our screens. “I would like to see more off-beat characters. I feel there’s a lot of LGBT+ content, but a lot of times, it’s pretty young twinks falling in love. It’s kind of the same as heterosexual stories.”

“I want to see stories about older gay men. I want to see stories about gay men or gay women of different colors. It doesn’t mean that these stories need to be purely about the sexuality. I want stories where the characters just happen to be gay. Their sexuality is the spice to the main meal.“