PASADENA, Calif. _ For most of his life, British actor Martin Freeman didn't want to draw attention to himself. Although he became famous, it wasn't part of his plan. But with roles like Bilbo Baggins in the "Hobbit" trilogy, Dr. Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch's "Sherlock" and the quietly murderous Lester Nygaard in "Fargo," he simply couldn't help himself.
"Some days I'm more clever with fame than others," he says. "I'm a reasonably private person. My nature is very private, and, of course, you only find out how private you are when people want to know more about you. You find out what kind of man you are when you become a dad."
He is the father of an 11-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son, which suits him perfectly for his latest role as the harassed dad in FX's comedy "Breeders," premiering next Monday.
Freeman, 48, thinks sometimes he's a success at parenting and sometimes a failure. "Fortunately my ex and I are very amicable, so we split (time with) them and the lines of communication are very open. We're lucky with that," he says.
His ex is his longtime partner, actress Amanda Abbington, with whom he split four years ago.
His own childhood was happy.
"I grew up in the situation where a lot of times there was not much money around _ not crying Dickensian poverty, but it wasn't lots of money. But I always knew I was loved. For me, that was everything. It's nice not to be poor. But if you know people who've got your back and truly love you, it's really important. So I think me and my ex try, and our kids definitely know they're adored."
The youngest of five, Freeman was only 10 when his father died. "The full weight of that didn't hit me until several years later," he says.
"I remember being in a theater and some credits came down and the name Geoffrey Freeman, my dad spelled it with a G. I was about 18 and was with my first girlfriend and I started welling up. And I hadn't really felt that when my dad died. I was playing football and bouncing back. When you're 10 you have other s __ to worry about besides grieving. But when it hits you later on, that's a pretty big deal."
His parents had divorced when he was young, and he lived part time with his dad. "I was really small. I was quite a sickly kid with hip problems and asthma. I was in and out of the hospital. I didn't want another reason for people to feel sorry for me," he says.
"I was already one of the few kids in my school whose parents were divorced. So no one was nasty to me, but I didn't want to stand out. So I tried to minimize it, I suppose. It was later on when I allowed myself. I thought I'd not really grieved this when the thought of not having a parent hits you, I'm allowed to be upset by that."
Freeman became part of a youth theater as a teenager and discovered he had a facility for acting. Other people thought so too.
"Up to that point I'd thought it was something I just enjoyed. I liked the social aspect, and I'm a bit of a showoff, so I liked being on stage and all that. But I'd not really thought, 'Oh, this is something that I can pursue' until I was 17 and I thought, 'I love it, and I'm quite good at it.'"
He says his mother supported his idea.
"My mom was excited because she'd wanted to be an actor. When she was a young woman her dream would've been to be an actor. It wasn't the time _ her circumstance wasn't right _ so when I said I think I want to be an actor she said, 'Go for it.'"
He did go for it, and after almost three years of drama school, he began working in theater, and at 30 landed the role of Tim in the original British version of "The Office." That series proved to be a massive hit.
But a few years later, Freeman began to doubt his choices.
"I was famous, I was doing pretty well. But I sort of started to wonder if I really liked doing it. If I really enjoyed doing it. What is it about this job that I really love? Is it habit? A lot of the time in life _ whether it's opinions about things, the things you love or hate _ a lot of the time you think, 'Is this just a habit I've got into?'
"Looking back on it now I think, what were you worried about? You had money? But maybe I missed out on a couple of jobs and that may have knocked my confidence.
"And I think being financially cautious _ my motto has been: Never go to jail, always pay your taxes, all that s __. I think maybe it was partially a financial thing, maybe it was missing out on a couple of jobs and I remember thinking ... 'Maybe I'm not that good, maybe I'm not as good as I'd hoped I was, and maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to do.' But thank God that passed and the love for it came back."
ACTOR INSPIRED BY 'INFINITE JEST'
Jason Segel had just finished nine years on the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" and says he didn't know where to go from there. But he soon figured it out and concocted a new series for AMC called "Dispatches from Elsewhere," which premieres in two parts Sunday and next Monday.
"I had just done a movie where I played David Foster Wallace, and he touches on a lot of those themes as well. And I had just read 'Infinite Jest' so I was feeling alive with these ideas," he says.
"And I then stumbled into this crazy experience in real life I took part in that we document in our show, dramatized. And I found it really moving, that a bunch of people in really different stages of life, from totally different walks of life _ socioeconomically, politically, ethnically _ were all taking part in this thing because something was missing from their lives.
"And that was just so interesting to me, that we all maybe are much more alike and much more confused than we are being told to believe. We're supposed to see our differences and I wanted to make a show about how we're much more similar than we realize that we are."
SERIES DUE ABOUT HUMAN-ANIMAL BOND
There may be a welcome breach from all the cynical shows on television. Unorthodox filmmaker Richard Linklater is creating a 10-part series for CBS All Access about the abiding bond between animals and the people who befriend them.
The unnamed docuseries will be executive produced by Bill Guttentag, winner of two Oscars for short documentaries, and Linklater.
"I come to this project hoping to shine a light on the folks I've met who are making a difference every day in the lives of unwanted, abused and disabled animals," said Linklater.
"What strikes me most is the joy and discovery on both sides of the relationship between the animals and their human caregivers. These are inspirational stories that I believe will be a positive force in the world."
COMICS REUNITE FOR HULU
Steve Martin and Martin Short will be reunited in a new comedy series for Hulu about three strangers who share a passion for unsolved crimes and become embroiled in one themselves. The show is produced by Steve Martin and John Hoffman with a little help from "This is Us" genius Dan Fogelman.
Short, who's been making people laugh since he was on the Canadian variety show "SCTV," says his whole family was funny.
"I was youngest so it was trickle-down funny like Reaganomics, only less comedic," he says. "My father was very sarcastic. My brother, Michael, is an Emmy-winning writer. Comedy was a very normal thing in our family. Then I would go to school and be funny with the kids. One of the things I've learned in my life is if you make people laugh or make people feel they are funny as well, they love you; you lead a blessed life. Kids are funny. They have a great understanding of the word 'kidding.' They can make fun of themselves, that's other big thing."
