The latest breakout series of the summer has arrived, and its name is The Assassin.
Streaming on Prime Video, the show stars Keeley Hawes as a retired assassin and mother to Edward (Freddie Highmore).
The pair are estranged, and the reason for that quickly becomes clear – Eddie doesn’t know about her past, and is stunned when she brutally dispatches a threat to their lives in front of him. Soon, the pair are on the run, and Eddie is being forced to untangle a childhood of secrets.
Part of the reason the show works so well is the chemistry between the leads. We know Keeley Hawes, of course – she’s appeared in everything from Ashes to Ashes to the more recent Miss Austen – but who is Freddie Highmore, the other half of the duo?
Here’s what to know.
Born in London
Highmore was born in 1992 in Camden, London. He’s from acting stock: his mother Sue Latimer is a talent agent, who represents artists like Daniel Radcliffe and Imelda Staunton, while his father, Edward, is also an actor.
He gained a scholarship to attend the private Highgate School, before studying Spanish and Arabic in Cambridge.
At the same time, his acting career was taking off. Highmore had been acting since the age of seven: he made his film debut in Coky Giedroyc’s 1999 film Women Talking Dirty, appeared in the fantasy film Five Children and It in 2004 and had his breakthrough in the film Finding Neverland, where he played Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the children ‘mentored’ by JM Barrie (Johnny Depp).
That got him several award nominations; he followed that up by appearing opposite Depp again for the 2005 remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the years that followed, Highmore appeared in films like Ridley Scott’s A Good Year, 2006 film Arthur and the Invisibles and 2008 film The Spiderwick Chronicles.
In a 2017 Evening Standard interview, Highmore credited his “parents, friends, being lucky and living in London” for why he didn’t go off the rails and down the clichéd child star route.
“I guess I am lucky. I think the distance from it as well with school and university allows you to see the illusions or see through them more so than if that’s your reality,” he said.
Bates Motel
At this point, Highmore’s CV was impressive – but he had his big break as an adult actor in the slasher thriller series Bates Motel, which he filmed during his year abroad.
The show, which was a prequel to the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (though set in the present day), saw Highmore take on the role of Norman Bates – for which he won a People’s Choice Award, as well as several award nominations.
In 2017, he then took on the role of Dr Shaun Murphy, an autistic doctor, in the ABE drama series The Good Doctor – a role for which he’s best known.
These days, Highmore lives in London, though is very private.
“I guess I stayed off the social media and stuff like that,” he added in his interview. “Not that you don’t appreciate people who like the work that you’ve been doing and the things that you’re in. I just feel like it’s always helped me maintain a clear difference between your private life at home and then when you’re working and that side of things.
“I don’t have any of those, the Twitter or anything. Maybe I should just get some secret account somewhere and keep up to date with everything.”
The Assassin is streaming now on Prime Video
