By Savannah Helming, The Seattle Medium
If you grew up in Seattle during the 2010s, chances are the name Fantasy A sounds familiar. At the very least, you’ve probably seen one of his self-promotion posters. Since 2015, they’ve been plastered in just about every city from Seattle to Bellingham.
These posters, featuring photographs of Fantasy A in iconic vistas around Seattle, usually promote his latest music or film project, and he’s always sporting his custom Fantasy A Seattle Seahawks jersey in true Seattleite fashion. Most posters also include his motto, “Be yourself, be inspired, be respectful.”
But exactly who is the person behind the posters? Who is Fantasy A?
”An actor and self-published author and musician with autism, promoting himself around town for almost 10 years,” said Fantasy A, whose real name is Alexander Hubbard. “The undisputed king of hustle.”
Hubbard’s stage name Fantasy A has a more literal meaning than you might think.
“Fantasy A is the name that I came up with when I read books based on fiction, and magic and action,” Hubbard said recently. “And A stands for my real name, Alex.” (In case you were wondering, his favorite fantasy books are the Harry Potter series, and his favorite book in the series is “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”)
Hubbard isn’t just an enjoyer of fantasy novels. He’s an author of them as well, and he self published three books in high school. His fantasy works include “Life in the World of Gabe Fabens and Sage the Scholar” (2013) and “School Rich” (2012). He has also published an autobiography, “Life in the Eyes of an Autistic Person” (2012).
“Life in the World of Gabe Fabens and Sage the Scholar” is the charming manifestation of a teenage boy’s vivid imagination. The book is a staggering 435 pages long, though the main storyline — a series of devastating storms that wipe out the entire city of Seattle and its male population — is resolved by page 47.
After the protagonist Gabe Fabens rebuilds and repopulates Seattle using his magical powers, the book follows him and dozens of other fictitious Seattle high school students as they go Christmas shopping, encounter a few dangerous gang members and criminals, and experience the thrill of teenage love, among other adventures. In the book it seems Hubbard is giving us a glimpse into his deepest thoughts, feelings and desires as a high-school boy with autism.
A few other things you might not know about Fantasy A: His favorite restaurant is Dick’s drive-in, where his go-to order is a Deluxe burger and a vanilla shake. He loves playing pinball at GameWorks, and one of his least favorite things is when people give him a hard time.
Hubbard is also an actor with two films, “Fantasy A Gets Jacked” (2016) and “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” (2023). Last year, the subjects of Hubbard’s posters shifted from his music projects and uplifting quotes to promotions of “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress.” An independent comedy film written and directed by two of Hubbard’s classmates at Seattle’s Center School, Noah Zoltan Sofian and David Norman Lewis of Dr. Clean Productions, “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” is loosely based on Hubbard’s housing struggles and experiences living in a group home. It’s also an ode to the crews’ lives and vanishing establishments and locations around Seattle.
Sofian, Lewis and Hubbard all attended the Center School for at least one year, though not all at the same time. Sofian’s and Lewis’ first encounter with Hubbard was when they met him as he was selling jewelry made from bottle caps outside their school and giving away his school photos to classmates.
“He graduated in 2010 and re-emerged as Fantasy A five years later, and David was like, ‘This guy is a total star,’” Sofian said. “He’s not just this goofy guy you see on the street; he’s someone with a deep wealth of meaning inside of him.”
Film director Sofian described the process of filming “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” as “a very strange and ever-changing process, but extremely fulfilling.” He said filming was usually spontaneous and happened when Hubbard would call the directors and ask them to meet him somewhere in Seattle.
“When Fantasy A asks you to meet somewhere, it’s always a super random place — he’s so hyper mobile that he can end up in any place around the city,” Sofian said. “But we really wanted to put an emphasis on places that weren’t going to be there anymore.” These locations include Dozer’s Warehouse on Beacon Hill and Bruce Lee’s old dojo basement in Seattle Chinatown-International District.
This is not your average homemade film, either. It won six awards across six different film festivals, including the Berlin Indie Film Festival in Berlin.
After a series of sold-out screenings in Seattle, the film made its way to New York City in April, where four out of five screenings sold out. The one show that did not sell out took place on the Monday of the solar eclipse, but the theater was still 75 percent full.
People in New York City love Hubbard. Many of them are Seattle locals who went to the Center School before moving to New York City, according to Lewis. He said that to many of them, Hubbard is “one of those famous people from that high school.”
“One guy who lives in New York had been following Fantasy A online for a while,” Lewis said. “He came to our final show where we had to turn a lot of people away and he couldn’t get in, and he goes, ‘Yeah, man, I came out to support you, but I guess you don’t need my support.’”
Fans of the film extended beyond just Seattle locals in New York. According to Lewis, Charlie Ahearn, director of “Wild Style,” attended a screening in NYC and said he enjoyed “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress.” He even arrived sporting his own Fantasy A pin and has a poster for the film hanging in his studio.
”Charlie talked a lot about the movie’s sound design in the closet,” Lewis said of the film’s DIY approach to audio production. “Because having done a lot of low-budget films himself, he knew how hard it is to get good audio… that was really cool, meeting someone like that who appreciated that detail about the movie.”
Hubbard, Sofian and Lewis aren’t sure when “Fantasy A Gets a Mattress” will be available on streaming platforms, but they said they are working on finding a distributor for the film. In the meantime, they said, keep your eyes on your local cinemas. Screenings will be coming back to Seattle theaters again in the near future.
While in New York City, Hubbard and his crew enjoyed tourist activities outside of attending their screenings. Some of Hubbard’s favorite memories from the trip included going to the Williamsburg Bridge and the discovery of Cafe Joyeux, a cafe committed to hiring people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
”We went there and they had one of the posters for the movie hanging up in the staff area and they all came out to get pictures with him,” Lewis said.
As much as he loved the Big Apple, Hubbard just couldn’t leave some parts of Seattle behind… at least, not his favorite hexagonal cereal, which he shipped from Seattle to New York upon discovering that it was unavailable in New York City grocery stores, according to Lewis.
Hubbard said he’s working on a new film called “Crystal Ball,” which will also be produced by Dr. Clean Productions. Unlike his previous films, this one will not be a story from his own life.
“It’s a different story,” Hubbard said. “It’s a romance type of movie, like being a little in love with a mummy.”
Hubbard is also working on a new novel called “The World of Jason Casanova.” The novel will tell the story of J, “an autistic wizard who has powers and wants to be friends with people who will understand him,” according to Hubbard. Casanova and his friends also encounter a dark lord, Steven van Dart.
”Steven van Dart is kind of like Donald Trump,” Hubbard said.
You can keep up with Hubbard on instagram @fantasya3. And don’t forget to “be yourself, be inspired, and be respectful.”
