Wynston Browne: Westport’s Newest Movie Star, In A Breakout Role

Triple Threat Academy’s 2022 film “Lux Freer” has won awards, and will screen at the Bridgeport Film Festival tomorrow. The acting/singing/dancing school’s fall classes start September 12.

But as founder/director Cynthia Gibb and writer/producer Jill Johnson Mann look ahead, they’re still smiling about this past summer.

The 2 women have had great careers in entertainment. Yet filming “Presumed Incompetent” — their 2023 film — was a highlight of their lives.

Both professionally, and personally.

The film was inspired by Wynston Browne. The story of the non-speaking autistic Staples junior — for years believed to be developmentally disabled, now using a keyboard to stun everyone with his remarkable intelligence — has inspired people all over town.

But Wynston is far more than the inspiration for the film.

He is also its star.

Wynston caught the eye of Gibb (a 1981 Staples High graduate and “Fame” star) and Mann, who works closely with Gibb (and whose children have acted professionally in, among others, “Mare of Easttown” and “Country Comfort”).

Each summer, Triple Threat students act in — and learn every element of — a short film. Mann and Gibb thought Wynston’s story deserved to be told on screen.

The first time Gibb met Wynston, she asked what he wanted people to learn from this film. He typed, “True inclusion means participation.”

They sure got that right.

Wynston Browne shares his thoughts by typing, in early table read.

Mann’s script for “Presumed Incompetent” tells the tale of a nonspeaking autistic teenager who was locked in his own mind for 15 years, with no way to communicate with the outside world.

Even his own parents could only guess what he was thinking. Those guesses were often off base, because the apraxia that afflicts “Chance” (and Wynston in real life) causes his body to move erratically. He appear agitated and unfocused, though he is not.

But only the boy locked inside knew that. He is highly intelligent. He hears and absorbs everything, even as doctors, teachers and therapists tell Chance’s family that he has a serious cognitive impairment.

No one presumed competence. The movie’s message is that we all must always presume competence.

Filming (from left) Claire Butler, Natalia Mann, Izzy Leeming and Sophie Jasmin Walther. Wynston told writer Jill Johnson Mann that one of the most difficult experiences during his years he could not communicate was feeling like kids made fun of him in the halls.

When the family discovers a spelling method that gives nonspeaking autistic people a voice, everything changes.

The film was shot entirely in Westport. The cast included 25 young people and 10 adults, nearly all of them locals.

During a week of rehearsals they got to know Wynston, who said that most of all, he just wants to be included with his peers.

He participated in the table read, spelling his lines as his character does in the film. He rehearsed scenes under Gibb’s direction, with the actors who played his parents and siblings.

His fellow actors learned to disregard signs that Wynston seemed to not listen or pay attention when they talked to him. They knew he was taking everything in, though his brain often can’t get his body to make eye contact or sit still.

Wynston Browne cuddles with castmates, during a break in filming.

But when Gibb called “action!” Wynston was laser focused. He stunned everyone with his nuanced, sensitive, emotional performance.

More than once, he had the cast and crew in tears.

Over the course of the week shooting the film, they watched a confident actor emerge.

Wynston Browne in an emotional scene, with fellow Westporter Alexandra Pearl.

Wynston got the drill: Now we go back down the hall and do another take; now they turn the cameras around and shoot another way; now I can feel proud because we got the shot!

In an astounding basketball scene Wynston worked the crowd, looking up to the stands with a grin as he sank shot after shot.

Wynston Browne’s face lights up, as he sinks his basketball shots. Westporter Mario Manna (left) plays his coach. Westport’s Miles Katz (far right), an Emerson film student, assists with the crew. 

He is in almost every scene in the film, working 12-hour days. In the evening he slouched on the couch like any teenager, cuddling with his film family, not wanting the day to end.

Partway through the shoot, he spelled to his mom: “I want to be an actor.” He told her it was the best week of his life.

Wynston had quite a surrounding cast, of actors from ages 7 to 85.

Other special needs actors participated too, including Bella Rizzi and Cotton Bodell of Westport.

Kassie Mundhenk of New Jersey, who played Moira Ross in HBO’s “Mare of Easttown,” alongside Kate Winslet and Jill Johnson Mann’s son Cameron (he turned out to be the murderer), was also in the film. Westporter Deb Katz plays Wynston’s mother.

Westport’s Bella Rizzi and Kassie Mundhenk set up for a shot at The Porch. The deli’s mission of inclusion and employing people with special needs aligns with the mission of Triple Threat’s films. 

“Presumed Incompetent” is now in post-production. Early next year, it will start making the rounds of film festivals.

This was not the only movie made through Triple Threat’s summer independent film project.

A student short, “Ocean’s 14,” was written by Staples senior Ayla Nahmias, and directed by classmate Tyler Rockwell.

“The Family Recipe” is a historical fiction story written by a Triple Threat’acting teachers, Alexandra Pearl. It starred a number of younger actors.

But “Presumed Incompetent” is the most ground-breaking. Wynston Browne is believed to be the first non-speaking autistic person to star in a film (other than a documentary).

He had a great 2 weeks. His co-stars and crew had an equally memorable time. A group chat continues the friendships formed on the set.

Soon, audiences everywhere will appreciate and admire Westport’s newest movie star too.

(“06880” is proud to tell Wynston’s story — and so many others. Please click here to support our work. Thank you!)