This article is part of a series called Seen: Spotlighting Disability Representation in Hollywood. Every month, VisABLE will highlight a person with a disability in Hollywood with the purpose of uplifting their voices and showing the impact people with different abilities have on the industry.
Performing on set for the Amazon Prime show, As We See It, was a dream for Sue Ann Pien. The actress, who’d been vying for her “big break” in Hollywood for almost two decades, finally found her place on the small screen.
And it was on a production where, for the first time, she could truly be herself.
Pien, 42, of Los Angeles, is autistic, and for much of her life, people viewed her autism as an inhibitor — something she should hide — especially when auditioning for an acting role.
Then, that changed. For the first time, Pien was celebrated by her colleagues and peers.
“It was an entire set where it was very safe to be autistic,” Pien said. “Not only that, but there was an innate sense of understanding, freedom, and lovingness because so many people were on the spectrum themselves on set or had loved ones [on the spectrum].
“It was like heaven on earth to be there.”
Pien plays Violet, one of the main characters on the show. As We See It is about three roommates on the autism spectrum navigating adulthood and the world around them.
Jason Katims, the show’s creator, said it was important to cast people with actual disabilities.
“I wanted the show to be authentic, and to honor the neurodiverse population that the show was about, and the first step to doing that is to cast authentically,” Katims said. “And I watched Sue Ann’s audition and I was honestly so moved by what she did and from that point on it was very clear that she was Violet.”
“Sue Ann is just such an incredible talent. She is somebody who is just, when she’d do these scenes, I would sort of be in awe because right from the second they called action, she was able to completely immerse herself into that moment.”
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. For Pien, autism primarily impacts her sensory and social abilities; as a child, she struggled to make friends. She said her difficulties in social situations led to a life of constant acting — or pretending to be someone else to better relate to family, friends, classmates, and the world.
Essentially, acting became a defense mechanism for Pien, who pretended to be like others by mimicking what she saw in film and television.
“When I was in school, I was picked on, and I didn’t want to get picked on anymore, so in junior high, I made a really definitive choice that I had to copy all the cool kids and be just like them,” Pien said. “It was kind of a survival strategy that I adopted, which actually is acting. I was doing character study, an intensive character study on people, their mannerisms, how they walk, how they talk, and how they dress.”
The acting continued into Pien’s college career when she attended UCLA. One day, Pien went to a rock climbing gym, where she met a group of new friends who happened to be models. She decided she wanted to model.
This is where her career in the entertainment industry officially began.
Pien found management and began booking commercials. Around the same time, she started taking acting classes to help with her confidence.
“There was a stretch where I was frightened of it [acting] because I was kind of shy,” she said. “In high school, I had a lot of sensitivities. Sometimes, I had to lock myself in the bathroom in between periods.
“When I started taking classes, I realized, wow — I love acting.”
Pien auditioned for roles, including for Grown-Ups 2, starring Adam Sandler, and a National Geographic’s Mars show that would have been a dream come true for Pien.
Space is an obsession of hers. Fun fact: Pien grew up in an aerospace family, and from the time she was a child, she wanted to go to Mars. At one point, she even applied to be a part of Mars One, an organization working to colonize Mars by sending humans every few years to establish a permanent settlement on the red planet.
Unfortunately, success would not find her yet.
“I was trying really hard to break-in, but it was tough,” she said. “I think it’s because it’s the hardest kind of town to break in and then probably because of me being on the autism spectrum and not always knowing how to navigate relationships.”
Eventually, after nearly two decades of working in the entertainment industry, one of Pien’s friends, who works in Hollywood, saw a breakdown for the show As We See It. She wrote a pitch letter on Pien’s behalf, and the next thing she knew, Pien was being called into the casting office. She was the first actor the casting director interviewed.
“It was a setup for what the entire set and experience of the show was going to be,” she said. “This was the first time I walked in and was safe as who I am.
“And for me to book the role that affirms that is so cathartic. It was a very deep, spiritual experience. It’s like a gift from the universe.”
Most autistic characters have been played onscreen by neurotypical actors. A 2018 white paper from the Ruderman Family Foundation found that non-disabled actors portray some 80 percent of all disabled characters on the small screen. Some films and television show examples where this happens include Please Stand By (2017) and Music (2021) and, currently, TV series ABC’s The Good Doctor and Netflix’s Atypical.
As We See It broke the mold when they hired three actors on the spectrum for the show, including Pien, who said no one could have played this character but someone with autism.
Pien’s character Violet is a 25-year-old cashier at Arby’s who desperately wants a boyfriend; specifically, she wants a boyfriend who is “normal” or not autistic or disabled. Pien said she and Violet had the same emotional core and similar lived experiences, which helped her bring the character to life.
“I figured out ways to bring the painful times of my history, which did actually mirror a lot of Violet’s, because a lot of the pain I had did come from me being on the spectrum, and having misunderstandings with my family members, or being left on dates,” she said.
“It happened to Violet, and it happened to me.”
As of now, there is no word on whether As We See It will get a second season, but Pien isn’t worried — she knows she’ll land on her feet.
Currently, she is working with Sony Pictures to create a documentary involving her biggest passion: space. Unfortunately, that’s all she could say per her non-disclosure agreement (NDA), but she’s excited that this will give her her first producer credit.
Meanwhile, Pien hopes more people watch As We See It to widen the world’s view of autism and disability.
“I don’t want to, at the expense of my own self-worth or happiness, have to keep hiding who I am for the sake of others,” she said. “The only reason I do that is so other people can feel comfortable in my presence.
“When does the world stop expecting autistic people to change in their presence instead of accommodating and being kinder and making the world kinder?”