So now it can be revealed: Peter Pan did grow up — and became Norman Bates. Or rather, that’s what happened to Freddie Highmore, who came to the world’s attention aged 12, in the JM Barrie biopic Finding Neverland, but who now, aged 24, is a bonafide adult star playing the mother-fixated motel-keeper in Bates Motel, a contemporary prequel to Psycho, which has been a huge hit on US television.
For Highmore, the transition appears seamless; which is good news for the actor, naturally keen to escape the child-star label that stuck to the Macaulay Culkins and Lindsay Lohans of this world.
He succeeded partly by never taking on overly cutesy roles like, say, Karen, in sitcom Outnumbered. (Ramona Marquez, the 15-year-old who played her, was the subject of a barrage of tweets in August when it was claimed she was high on drugs at a festival — a claim she denied.)
“It’s tricky, it’s not usually the actor’s fault, but it’s easy to have a certain tag by dint of your younger roles,” he says.
He also took careful note of the career path of old family friend Daniel Radcliffe, who made his name as Harry Potter but now at 27, is an established actor. “Dan’s done so many things,” says Highmore, whose mother Sue Latimer is both his and Radcliffe’s agent. “He has an amazing work ethic, which helped him move on from Harry Potter to the Peter Shaffer play Equus, to singing and dancing on Broadway. That drive is an inspiration.”
Radcliffe risked being stuck forever in the public imagination as Harry Potter. Highmore, on the other hand, manoeuvred more cleverly by playing a variety of child roles, like Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
He then moved slowly, via teen movies, to what he calls “adult films”. “Not that kind of adult,” he adds hastily, giggling.
Bates Motel, in which he started acting while finishing his degree in Arabic and Spanish at Cambridge (gaining a double first), was hugely acclaimed in the US, but only has a cult audience here, where it’s shown on the Universal channel.
Now, though, Highmore’s profile looks set to rocket in his own country, thanks to his part in Close to the Enemy, a new BBC series by Stephen Poliakoff. The spy drama, mainly set in a bomb-damaged London hotel in 1946, tells the story of Army captain Callum Ferguson’s attempts to persuade a German scientist to reveal his country’s secrets regarding the development of the jet engine.
Highmore plays Ferguson’s younger brother Victor, who, suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress, leads the captain a merry dance. “Victor was such an interesting character, eccentric and given to mood swings, but with a certain sense of self-awareness,” he says. “He has an innate understanding of human nature.”
Highmore says he had never before felt as much pressure as he did going into the six-part series. That’s quite a statement, given Highmore’s role in Finding Neverland found him acting opposite Kate Winslet as his mother and Johnny Depp as JM Barrie.
“At that age, I don’t think you care who people are,” he says, sitting on a terrace in Soho, London, slight and pale — despite the autumn sunshine. “It’s a very healthy introduction to the business. I had no sense of backstory with a particular person, so I didn’t go on set and think people were better or different, they were just people you had fun with.”
He’s still in touch via text with Depp, who also — reportedly — requested he was cast as the title role in Charlie, where he played Willy Wonka. “He’s such a huge influence on me in never being confined by a particular character or genre. He’s incredibly funny and very insightful.”
Though Highmore’s from a theatrical background (his father is actor Edward Highmore, who played Leo Howard in the 80s soap opera Howard’s Way), he attended a “regular” school in north London. “I’d work in LA, then return home to normality. Acting was a hobby, not an end game.”
The endgame was always university: “I took the time away from acting so if and when I got back into it, it would be by dint of actually wanting to do it and it being a conscious decision,” he says.
He never acted in a Cambridge production, and — for the first two years — did no acting at all. “I didn’t want to, I wanted to play football for the college and keep a separation.”
In his third year — spent abroad — he juggled the timings so, after a stint in a lawyer’s office in Madrid, he was able to fit in the first series of Bates Motel. Now about to film the fifth and final series, he’s also planning to write and direct an episode.
“I’m used to combining acting with other things, like doing a degree. I like to be exercising both sides of my brain.” When I remark that it takes not just brilliance but extreme hard work to gain a double first, he smiles. “Oh, I did. I was never a glide-through-things kind of person.”
Highmore is friendly, but guarded about his personal life. In fact, he’s so discreet, you can’t help wondering why he isn’t following the traditional path for Cambridge Arabic graduates: working for the Secret Services.
“I’ve always been amused by that façade. That when I’m filming Bates in Vancouver, I’m really working for MI5.” Highmore smiles. “That would be the greatest role I’ve ever played.”