Have a fun game to play with you, actually, since you are the language expert. Okay? It's called, how many ways can you say?

Oh, I was gonna be useless at this game.

No, you're not. You're you're a professional linguist. How many ways can you say hello? How many ways? Hello. Hey, guys. I'm Brany Chang for Young Hollywood. Here in the studio with Freddie Highmore. Hi, Freddie.

Hi there. How are you doing?

How are you? Good. Freddie, good. Thanks for coming and joining us today.

No, no, not at all. Thanks for having me. Um, first of all, I was saying that we're color coordinating. And that's what, Sorry, no. I just I didn't see myself.

Were you a little scared by yourself there?

Well, it was doing some flashing and then I didn't see that I had appeared behind you. There was flashing and then all of a sudden, there you are.

So, Freddie plays Norman on Bates Motel. The season ended kind of on a really interesting note.

I guess the last few episodes were perhaps the best ones that we've done on Bates Motel. Now, I've been involved in the writer's team now for the show. And so, you have a bit more inside scoop than usual in terms of knowing what's gonna happen.

Yeah, you wrote an episode called Unfaithful, correct?

That's right. Yeah.

Well, what was that experience like? You know, you know all the pieces of information. Yeah. You and Rihanna are just with the Unfaithful title. It's a Rihanna song, guys. Yes. Um, what was that experience like writing your own episode? Like, did they come up to you or were you kind of like, "Hey, I have these ideas. Take a look." And then, they kind of trusted you to come up with something more or

I guess the way that a writer's room works is is incredibly collaborative. You know, everyone pitches ideas and stories for every single episode. And then an individual writer is then sort of given one particular thing to go and write up. And I guess I'm just very grateful to the executive producers for giving me that chance. To to write my own episode. Yeah. Yeah.

How has that changed the way that you prepare for getting into your character as Norman? Now, do you look at it with a different set of eyes?

A little bit, yes. But I guess you try and distance yourself somewhat from Norman when you're writing. You know, you don't wanna just give yourself all the lines or give yourself no lines or whatever. Or the best lines. So, yes, it was that was a great experience.

I read somewhere that you said that one of the most challenging things that you did on the show was the portrayal of Norma, of Mother. Uh-huh. Tell me about getting into that role because that's a really dark and intense role that you did. And people have so many amazing things to say about your performance, by the way. But I want to hear from you, what was that like tapping into that? describe that for us. Because you're so lovely and you know what I mean? It's it's crazy. It's night and day, your portrayal of that on the show compared to who you are. So, it's just a really a true testament to you as an actor.

Oh, thank you. I think it's working on the transitional moments from, you know, it's not just merely becoming Norma or becoming Norman. It's more those periods of where he's in between each stage and how he changes from one into another and how that happens. And I think Carton and Carrie have been great in never rushing those transitions and allowing them the time to breathe so it's real as opposed to just this sort of instantaneous switch that happened.

Yeah. And you've worked with some incredible actors, you know, beyond Bates Motel as well. Johnny Depp, I heard suggested you for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well. I just love how you're bringing out all these things. I know. I know so many things about you. I probably know more about you than you know about yourself.

Yes, exactly. You know all my

Probably know more about your character. all the inside scoops on all of the audition processes behind every film. Yeah. You know all the casting directors, and like, "Tell me about Freddie." Um, no, but it's it's really cool that so many great actors have so many wonderful things to say about you and about your talent as well. But what do you do when you're not shooting?

There's the writing to be getting on with for a little bit. And then, football. There's the Euro, which probably doesn't mean much to everyone here. Um, but football. I'm a football fan. Yeah, the soccer variety. Arsenal. And England is somewhere, of course.

Mm-hm. You went to university there, right? In Cambridge? University of Cambridge?

Yes.

This is this is brilliant. It's like you're right. You're right. Okay, I'll just ask you the questions now. "Did you go to university? True or false?" I'll just play a true or false game with you. "Did you do these things? True." Yeah. But I think it's really cool that you did go to university and that you did study, and I'm interested in learning more why you decided to study what you studied. And tell the audience 'cause I know what you studied, obviously. But please tell the audience what you studied because it's really it's fascinating.

I did languages. So, I did Arabic and Spanish. Yeah, I guess I always liked languages.

And then have you gotten to apply that in real life? Do you travel a lot?

Yeah. Yeah, I try to. Yeah, and I've been lucky, especially with the university course, I had the year abroad. So, you get to spend, you know, nine months away.

Where'd you go?

I was in Madrid for most of it.

Interesting. Which is pretty great. Did you go to a soccer game there?

I went to a couple, yeah.

It seems like the Madrid thing might be something new that you're not entirely

I'm not. I do not know about that or at least I'll pretend I don't know about that.

About my Madrid days. Tell me about your Madrid days.

Uh, no, I worked at a law firm, actually.

Uh-huh. Yeah, it was very enthusiastic. "Cool. Yeah. That's really interesting." Um, no, that's fascinating. Why why law? Uh. What made you decide to

I I was doing translation between Spanish and English for this law firm over there. I guess I've always had interests beyond acting. I wanted it to be a choice to sort of carry on, especially because I was doing it when I was younger, you know, that it was an active decision to carry on doing it and to carry on acting and now, you know, hopefully, more writing and and developing projects. And so, I guess doing other things was a way of ensuring that it was a choice.

Yes. I'll play a fun game to play with you, actually, since you are the language expert. Okay? It's called, how many ways can you say?

Oh, I was gonna be useless at this game.

No, you're not. You're you're a professional linguist. How many ways can you say hello? How many ways? Hello.

Hola. Uh-huh. Bonjour. Arabic? Well, the Arabic, the thing with it's tricky with Arabic is that there are so many different dialects. It's gonna get really boring if I start to explain it. But I guess like Sabah Al Khair, and then you would say Sabah Al Noor.

It's kind of like saying like, "Hello," or, "Hi," or, "Hey," or something like that, or?

Yeah, it's it's more if someone from North Africa, for example, speaking an Arabic dialect can't communicate with someone from the Gulf, you know, in their respective dialects, they're that different.

See? I learned something new right there. There we go. It wasn't really about you, but it was something new for sure. Yeah. Okay. So, the last one. How do you say, "Thank you for watching"? How many ways can you say that?

Oh, thank you very much for watching. That's very nice. Just one way. I think that's the best way.

And that was just two ways.