North Texas Filmmaker Makes Directorial Debut With Film About Dating With Autism

Ask filmmaker and actor Taylor Foster where she's from, and she'll happily tell you Dallas.

If she's speaking with someone familiar with Texas, Foster might even clarify that she grew up "around McKinney and Anna." But if she's speaking with a fellow Texan, she'll proudly state that she grew up in Westminster, a census-designated place with a population barely scratching at four digits.

"Westminster is … reminiscent of the Wild, Wild West because there is no town charter or local officials,” Foster says. “The place where you can get lost and feel society pull away.”

Born in 1996, Foster went from this tiny corner of Texas to now directing a forthcoming film titled Wally Jackson and the Probability of Love and Car Accidents. Her artistic endeavors date to her middle and high school days when she would travel to McKinney for ballet and tap dance classes. In the halls of places like McKinney's Studio 511 Performing Arts Center, Foster cultivated a passion for the arts. That interest further blossomed after engaging in competitive dance events across North Texas.

Eventually, she began traveling to Los Angeles each summer between her high school years in hopes of booking acting gigs. But while Foster became immensely accustomed to big city life through her repeated Los Angeles voyages, nearby towns like Allen, Fairview, and McKinney began constructing larger suburban enclaves, providing her more access to the arts.

Landing a starring role in the film Saving Sloane (released in 2021 by Lionsgate), though, solidified her fascination with filmmaking.

“Doing Saving Sloane told me I can do this for the rest of my life,” Foster says.

From there, Foster has since worked consistently as an actor on projects like the Netflix program Dear White People and Hulu's How I Met Your Father.

Foster knew that acting was not the limit for her film journey, however.

When writer/actor Austin James Wolff was seeking a director for his film Wally Jackson and the Probability of Love and Car Accidents, Foster quickly jumped aboard as its director. Wolff had recently been diagnosed with autism and was discouraged by the pop culture representations of autistic people, which he felt didn’t reflect his own experiences. His film is his way of rectifying that erasure.

Wally Jackson follows the everyday life of its titular protagonist (played by Wolff) as he seeks out romantic connections using his mathematical abilities. For Wolff and Foster, it was critical to underpin the film with elements differentiating it from other movies about autistic and neurodivergent people.

“We don’t ever say 'autism' or 'spectrum,'” Foster says of the Wally Jackson script. “It’s just a character who’s a little different … written and performed by a person on the spectrum.”

Conjuring up ways Wally Jackson could offer something different in the autism cinema space was one thing, but navigating the toughest parts of the feature’s 17-day principal photography in Los Angeles was another. For Foster, there were different levels of challenges behind the camera throughout the shoot.

“There was a fight scene, which required a fight coordinator, choreographer,” Foster recalls of one of the film's most arduous sequences.

The most draining sequence was a party that took three days to capture. Shot within Foster’s own home, she notes that this set piece was the most difficult to shoot because of "how much energy it took to realize.”

For three consecutive days, Foster and crew maintained a raucous atmosphere that simulated an overwhelming party. Plus, the techniques used to capture day-for-night shooting disrupted everyone’s circadian rhythm. These are the kinds of trials Foster could never have imagined navigating when taking those ballet classes as a middle schooler in a quiet slice of North Texas.

Now, listening to Foster talk about shooting this movie and collaborating with Wolff, her enthusiasm for filmmaking is undeniable. She even excitedly mentions off-handedly that she’s stewing over concepts for potential features and short films. No matter where Wally Jackson and future creative endeavors take her, it’s clear Foster’s passionate approach to the arts still traces back to North Texas.

“I grew up in a very small town where everyone knew everyone, and that inspired me to treat everyone like we are already friends,” Foster says.

Wally Jackson is running an IndieGoGo campaign to raise funds for the film’s post-production process. You can access that campaign here.