Bodyguard’s Keeley Hawes and The Good Doctor’s Freddie Highmore play mother and son in a twisty, sun-soaked spy caper

Written by Douglas Tseng

Freddie Highmore is no stranger to playing characters with shady mothers. On Bates Motel, the Psycho prequel series which ran from 2013 to 2017, Highmore’s Norman Bates has to put up with a mummy (Vera Farmiga) knee-deep in secrets and lies.

And now he has to deal with another mummy who’s off her rocker in the new six-part BBC limited series The Assassin, the latest comic thriller from Jack and Harry Williams, the British screenwriting siblings behind The Tourist.

Highmore, 33, plays Edward, a socially awkward bloke who visits his happily retired — and very estranged — mother Julia (Bodyguard’s Keeley Hawes) in picturesque Greece, only to discover she’s not exactly sipping cocktails all day. Surprise! She used to be an assassin.

When Julia’s clandestine past catches up with her, mother and son hit the road — and the chaos button.

As Highmore and Hawes explain to 8days.sg over Zoom, signing on was a no-brainer.

“I mean, it was a bit of both — the scripts and filming in Greece,” Hawes. 49, said with a smile. “And a bit of Freddie thrown in. I’d say all of those things!” (Fun fact: Athens and the surrounding area also stood in for Albania, Libya, Bulgaria, Spain, and the south of France.)

Highmore, meanwhile, was sold on the show’s tone and emotional core: “It’s high-stakes, sure, but what I loved was the mother-son relationship. There’s a real warmth and understated humour that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s very British like that.”

After years of filming Bates Motel and The Good Doctor in British Columbia, Highmore welcomed the chance to swap Canadian chill for Mediterranean sun and return to European shores. “It felt right to come home for this,” he said, adding that working with Hawes was “inspiring” and that she’s since become a close friend.

When they aren’t catching up on years of awkward family tension, Julia and Edward are busy dodging bullets.

Don’t be fooled by Julia’s sun-drenched beach entrance in episode one — she’s not your average retired spy. But when it came to physical prep, Hawes admits she… didn’t do much.

“I actually didn’t do any training at all,” she laughed. “Julia’s been retired and is literally drunk on a beach when she gets pulled back in. I was told to get a tan and read the scripts. That was my prep!”

Still, Hawes went full John Wick on Jack Davenport (as a former associate of Julia’s) in an intense yacht brawl — a scene fans might assume involved heavy stunt work. “That was pretty much all me,” she revealed, though she credited her stunt team for making her look like a total badass.

Even Highmore was impressed. “Keeley’s downplaying it,” he said. “That was all her.”

Hawes, now bitten by the action bug, confessed she wouldn’t mind more stunts in the future. “I’d like to do more action. I’m not brilliant — I always look a bit awkward — but I really enjoyed it.”

And yes, Highmore gets in on the action too. “In episode four, Julia starts training Edward up,” Highmore teased. “The situation gets perilous, and she’s like, ‘Okay, time to give my son some skills.’”

If The Assassin scores a second season, where would the duo like to take their covert missions next?

“You’re making it sound like The White Lotus,” Highmore joked, referencing the award-winning HBO anthology that changes its filming locations with each season.

“Costa Rica!” Hawes blurted without hesitation. “I’ve never been. It’d be a great backdrop — and I’d like to have a nice time there.”

Highmore was less decisive but eventually warmed to the idea. “Maybe somewhere sunny, yeah. Latin America. Costa Rica sounds good.”

Source: 8days