If you’re parenting an autistic child, you’ve been in rooms where people decided who your child was before they ever met them: “they don’t look autistic,” “what’s their superpower?” In this episode of The Autism Mom Coach, Lisa talks with autistic actress Bella Zoe Martinez and her mom, Melissa Areffi, about their short film Once More Like Rain Man, which sets that universal experience inside one very specific room: the Hollywood casting room. Bella speaks candidly about being typecast, about what masking actually feels like from the inside, and about why autism is a spectrum far wider than the flat, robotic characters she kept being asked to play.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why one-dimensional media portrayals of autism do real harm, and how Bella built her film character from real life to show the range and expressiveness that typecasting erases.
- What masking actually feels like from an autistic person’s perspective, why Bella compares it to acting, and why kids come home from a full day of it completely depleted.
- How sensory experiences like fluorescent lights and noise land for autistic people, and why your own regulation matters so much given that autistic kids are often skilled at reading the adults around them.
About the guests:
Bella Zoe Martinez is an autistic actress, artist, and advocate who wrote and stars in the short film Once More Like Rain Man. Melissa Areffi is Bella’s mother and creative partner on the film, which was made by a cast and crew who are neurodivergent, neurodivergent-adjacent, or allied with its message.
Links mentioned:
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Transcript
I just know that there’s more of us out there. I want people to know that there’s more of us out there, that it’s just not one type of autism. Just, uh, people seem to forget that, uh, autism is a spectrum, guys. Mm-hmm. And there’s more of us. There’s more stories. We can tell our own stories and have it not be related to our autism.
You are listening to the Autism Mom Coach podcast. Once More Like Rain Man with Bella Zoe Martinez. Welcome to the Autism Mom Coach Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Candera. I am a lawyer, a life coach, and most importantly, I am the full-time single mother of a teenager with autism. In this podcast, I am going to share with you the tools and strategies you need so you can fight like hell for your child without burning out.
Let’s get to it. Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast. If you are parenting an autistic child, you have been in rooms where people decide who your child is before they even meet them. You’ve heard remarks, and you’ve had questions that sound harmless, but they always land sideways, at least for us.
Things like, “They don’t look autistic,” and, “What’s their superpower?” This is the experience my two guests, Bella Zoe Martinez and her mom, Melissa Areffi, capture in their short film, Once More Like Rain Man. In this short film, the cast captures the experiences of autistic people and their parents everywhere, at school, in public, with professionals, and with total strangers.
But it does that inside one very small and specific room, the Hollywood casting room. It reminds me of The Devil Wears Prada. That movie wasn’t really about fashion. It was about power, expectations, and constantly shifting rules. However, the glamorous setting made the story interesting, but the experience is so universal.
The same thing goes here. The casting room in Once More Like Rain Man becomes the microcosm for how autism gets misunderstood everywhere else. In 15 minutes, this film packs a powerful punch, leading with humor, but exposing the raw, unfiltered reality of being typecasted, unseen, and underestimated. Once More Like Rain Man is written, directed, and supported by a cast and crew who are neurodivergent adjacent and/or allied with the message of this film.
With that, let’s get to my interview with Bella and Melissa. Bella, for the folks in the audience who have not yet seen this movie or the trailer for the movie, tell us a bit about it. Once More Like Rain Man is basically the day in the life of an autistic actress going through the audition day from hell with her dad, Jerry, and trying to make a feature that has her in it Yeah, so tell me what was one role that you were auditioning for?
How was the autistic person written that you were- No, it wasn’t just one. It was- Okay … it was- Well, no, I mean, give me an example of one. How were autistic characters written? Okay. I love using this example. So imagine you’re, like, in a video game and you think you’re the hero, but later down the line in the video game, you realize, “Wait a minute.
I’m not the hero, I’m the obstacle.” Like, one audition that I have w- had, which was for, like, a character named Lola, and it was for, like, a film called Cha Cha Real Smooth, but, like, she was very flat- It, it won Sundance … very one-note, and one-dimensional. And the only reason she had more depth to the character is ’cause I asked questions and built more on the character and made it less of a one-note.
Well- I didn’t get the role ’cause I was too tall So give me an example of some of the questions that you were being asked, Bella. “You don’t look autistic. You don’t sound autistic. Gr- uh- You’re a girl. “… girls g- don’t get autism.” I’m like, “I’m sorry, what? What do you mean by that?” Like- So you were talking about the characters being written as robotic.
Can you just tell me a little bit more about that? I think it’s mainly because a lot of the time they just assume people on the autism spectrum just can’t really emote that much. It can be true for some people. It, but not always. I’m very expressive and very emotive. I’m just a chaotic, hyper-fixated gamer gal a lot of the time.
I’m just like, I yap constantly, always expressing. But, like, a lot of the time I just don’t tap into that side of being autistic. It’s just a… I’m like, “Guys, we’re not always, like, looking like Wednesday Addams or something.” I’m not always doom and gloom. I can express. Some of us don’t re- I, I mean, my brother kinda drank my mom’s mango tea and didn’t shut up for five hours.
He narrated the entire trip home from New York So Bella, tell us about the character, your character in Once More Like Rain Man. How did you differentiate this character from the portrayal that you’ve seen of autistic individuals in film? I based it off real life. I based her character off a little bit of myself and my siblings.
The counting of the sucks is actually something my sister would do. Well, something similar to that, but like that- Sure … was just because my dad would sneeze a bunch of times. But also, she’s the language police. She doesn’t swear at all. And I know a lot of ki- like, people on the autism spectrum have a problem with swearing or the word suck in particular.
It’s because, like, when you’re younger, you’re told, ’cause we cling to rules a lot, like, a lot more than normal people. So when you’re told as a kid, like, “Hey, you can’t say that word. You can’t swear,” and you’re like, “Okay.” And like, I know like for some people they kind of loosen on that and just like, you’re like, “Oh, right, you’re an adult, you can say it.”
But for a lot of us, we’re like, “No, you told us we can’t say it, so we’re not gonna.” So let me ask you about that. Is the main character based on you or an amalgamation of you and other autistic people that you know? Yes. Amazing. Okay. What about the dad, Jerry? Does he… First of all, when I saw him, I was like, “Oh my God, it’s Badger from Breaking Bad.”
He had no clue. I didn’t watch Breaking Bad. I knew him from Amphibia and Final Fantasy, which I think is- I knew his face immediately, and there was- I was reading, I don’t know if it was- I didn’t- Yeah. I don’t know if it was like his IMDb, but he was like, “I usually play losers and drug dealers,” but then I thought, I was like, “Oh my God, it’s Badger.”
He’s such a, he’s such a dork. And he has like two kids, like, and I know his real wife actually plays Sheila- Sheila … in that film, which is even funnier. Yeah. His wife is Kristen Hager. She was on, what, Chicago Med? Yeah. And that’s his real wife playing Sheila on the FaceTime. Bella, I’ve been trying to read up as much on you as I could before this.
And so one of the things that I saw that you talked about, possibly in another interview, that really struck me is you said something to the ef- uh, you said something to the effect that masking is like acting. It is. Tell me, one, what masking looked like for you, and then two, how you connected masking with acting.
Masking is just trying to like, well, mask a lot of like the stems that you have, like as someone on the autism spectrum, but also like just trying to like… It, it’s almost like toning yourself down just so like people don’t see you as too weird- Okay … or like stare at you like you’re some kind of abomination or freak.
I have… I’m an extrovert with social anxiety. And that’s really weird on its own When did you, like, so just for, as a parent of a child with autism and as a coach to many parents of children with autism, we have our children who are going to school and they come home and they are exhausted, and they’ve been masking all day.
Tell us about that. Like, may, because we know that conceptually, but we don’t know what it feels like. So if- Oh … whatever you could add to that. Oh, it is exhausting because our brains, like for like me specifically, it’s basically working in overdrive trying to focus on what I need to focus on, especially like in school.
School can be a nightmare for some kids on the spectrum because there’s a lot going on, especially when it comes to noise. I’m a lot more noise sensitive because I, everything of noise is like on an equal level for me, so like I can, but I know for some people it’s 10, like 100 times more worse. Wow. Like, that’s why a lot of kids wear a lot of noise-canceling headphones because noise regulation is borderline impossible for them.
They would love to control it and dropkick it out the w- like the window and be like, “Just let me focus.” But unfortunately, they don’t have that reality, so they’re like, “All right, this is the next best thing. I’m just gonna have my headphones on and hopefully hope for the best.” And I know for some kids, the reason why they stim, like rocking or like flapping hands, it’s because they’re trying to find their body in space because their body decided to Alt+F4 somewhere else, and they’re- Alt+F4
control something. Did you know Alt+Control+F4? Yep. And decides to no clip into the ether, and they’re trying to bring it back By any means necessary. And- Sort of like a grounding … um, by the public stress of the n- neurotypical people, that can make it 10 times harder. People, e- even when people say, “Don’t judge by, a book by its cover,” or, like, “Don’t judge” in general, they’re gonna be judging.
They’re being stupid. Absolutely. There, there’s some busybodies- Yeah … out there. They’re annoying as hell. Yep. And, and I know, like, some people think automatically, like, everyone on the spectrum gets along. No. I, I had a spoiled brat in my special ed class, and couple kids in my, like, couple kids and myself banded together and spite of this kid because he was kind of a brat, autism or not.
He was just a brat. He’s also a burnt-out gifted kid. Mm. I’m a burnt-out gifted kid, because, like, my mind works in overdrive a lot of the time. And when it comes to, like, how, like, noise, like is, like, for me, like, especially, like, fluorescent lights, I can hear that. Like, that’s, like, for normal people it bothers them as well, but, like, if it’s just on full brightness for fluorescent ri- lights, especially for autistic kids, it’s hell on earth.
Mm. Because you can hear the buzzing of the lights, and, like, it just feels like your eyes get, like, eye strain. But even though you’re not really looking at the lights, you just feel the strain, and it’s not pleasant. It’s, it’s why I have blue light glasses now. So Bella, what was it that you figured out, let’s just say in school, that I need to hide this in order to fit in more or to not stand out?
What were the things for you? Um, I didn’t really do that so much. Okay. I mean, I kind of had to after being bullied, but the reason w- was not what you think. It’s mainly because I was, I’m still ridiculously good at reading people. It almost felt like mind reading. But after being bullied in sixth grade, I kind of subconsciously ignored it.
Some of it. I mean, I have a hard time telling my own emotions sometimes, and it kind of sucks. I can tell what others are thinking a lot of the time. Wow. Okay, maybe I’m, or maybe reading too much into it because I’m a chronic over thinker, but I think that’s just some of the autism community. That is definitely something as, you know, parents of kids with autism of needing to be mindful of grounding ourselves because our children, we are your environment, and you are reacting to us, and you are gauging us.
And so I think that is such an important skill for us to learn and to, you know, really be more aware of. So Bella, tell me what you want people… Like, why do you want people to see this movie? Why do you think this movie is important, and what is it that you want the world to know about you, about people with autism?
Like, the floor is yours. I just know that there’s more of us out there. I want people to know that there’s more of us out there, that it’s just not one type of autism. Just people seem to forget that, uh, autism is a spectrum, guys. Mm-hmm. And there’s more of us. There’s more stories. We can tell our own stories and have it not be related to our autism.
I’m an artist of many kinds. It really is up to make a future that has you in it, because that’s the most important thing. Um, but- I love that quote from the movie. Can you just repeat that for us and just tell us what that means? It’s up to you to make a future that has you in it. It just means that no one’s gonna do it for you.
You gotta pave the way yourself, even if it’s difficult. Sure, there might be like a lot of road bumps in the way for whatever you’re trying to achieve, but I think you can do it as long as you got a mu- like a, as long as you’ve got determination. Bella and Melissa, it was such an honor to meet you. I so admire the work that you’re doing to lift this community up.
I think it’s amazing, and you and Bella clearly have such a wonderful close relationship, and I really wanna thank you for this film and for all the work that you have done and that you will do in this community. Thank you everyone for listening to this week’s episode of the podcast. I hope you found it helpful, and like me, I hope you found it inspirational.
I am certainly inspired by Bella and her mission of making autism more known and more relatable to people in the way that people with autism actually experience it, versus these typecasted ways that we currently have of understanding it. The more we understand of the actual autistic experience, the better able we will be to support our children going forward.
Again, thank you for listening, and I will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to The Autism Mom Coach. If you are ready to apply the principles you are learning in these episodes to your life, it is time to schedule a consultation call with me. Podcasts are great, but the ahas are fleeting. Real change comes from application and implementation, and this is exactly what we do in my one-on-one coaching program.
To schedule your consultation, go to my website, to autismmomcoach.com, work with me, and take the first step to taking better care of yourself so that you can show up as the parent you want to be for your child with autism.
