Autistic filmmaker's emotional video interview with A Word and Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston

Gerard Groves is a young filmmaker and broadcast journalist at the BBC. Last year, ahead of the launch of BBC drama The A Word – about a family learning to cope with an autistic child – Gerard, who has Asperger's, told us about his own experiences of being on the autism spectrum and how the show struck a chord with him. He also shared his exclusive video interview with his Doctor Who hero Christopher Eccleston, who plays the grandfather of autistic boy Joe in The A Word.

A year later, Gerard and Christopher got together again for another wide-ranging, and at times emotional, interview in which the usually guarded star discussed what he's learnt about autism during his work on the show and opened up about topics including the death of his father who had suffered with Alzheimer's.