Since season three of The Walking Dead started, I’ve been attracted to the character of Milton Mamet, the science loving assistant to the Governor. He always seemed a lot like me, but in my traditional aspie tradition of missing things that are obvious, it took me until a few weeks ago to realize that he’s autistic. In fact, he has symptoms and behaviors almost identical to me. I was as excited about this as I was when I realized this about Butters on South Park.

I contribute to a very popular Walking Dead podcast called The Walking Deadcast. This week, the actor who plays Milton, Dallas Roberts, was interviewed. In this interview, Jason asked him my question about Milton having Asperger’s. Dallas confirmed that he is, indeed, on the spectrum and was happy it was noticed. He intended it as an important part of the character.

If you want to listen to the podcast, you can do so here. The interview begins at 40:43.

I’ll try to transcribe the relevant part here (though I’m terrible at doing this, so please forgive me if it’s not 100% perfect):

Jason: So, one of our listeners, he contributes to the show a lot, his name is Jaden Walker. He wrote in, a couple of weeks ago, he said, “Listening to the latest show and it hit me: Milton has Asperger’s just like me. He acts exactly like me in every situation. Now I’m routing for him to survive more than ever.” So do you think there’s something to that? Dallas: I definitely think there’s something to that and there couldn’t really be a higher, I couldn’t be more satisfied that someone might have pulled that out. Because I was attempting someone at least on that spectrum whether it’s Asperger’s or… Jason: Autism. Dallas: Yeah. That that was an issue that he was dealing with in addition to the outbreak and the people around him. Yes, he hit the proverbial nail on the head there. Jason: Good! When he found out that I was going to be talking to you today, he wrote in and said, “Please tell him I’m honored there’s such a positive representation of Asperger’s on TV. Milton’s great and shows just how wonderful we can be.” Dallas: Awesome! Jason: So he’s happy with that. Dallas: Well, I’m happy with that. Jason: Good, I’m glad, too.

This totally made my day, today :)