‘I’m not sure I want to be an actor’

Mar 21 2008 by Rob Driscoll, Western Mail

Move over Daniel Radcliffe, there’s a new kid on the block in the form of Freddie Highmore. Rob Driscoll meets the young star of this Easter’s big screen blockbuster

WITH Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe deserting our shores for Broadway, Britain’s young cinema-goers are hungry for a new teen, big screen hero.

Step forward Freddie Highmore, 16-year-old star of this Easter’s movie fantasy The Spiderwick Chronicles, which has already proved a monster hit in America.

Yet Highmore is not exactly a stranger to success in the movie world. His CV is already the envy of actors twice his age, with significant roles in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Johnny Depp specifically asked Highmore to play the title role – Finding Neverland and The Golden Compass.

For The Spiderwick Chronicles, based on the best-selling series of children’s books, he might justifiably have asked for two dressing rooms, as he plays two of the leading characters – twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace.

The challenge of playing two roles might have daunted other young performers, but Highmore positively relished the opportunity to tackle something very different.

“I think it’s great to do new things for every new film you do, and you don’t always want to play the same character,” says London-born Highmore.

“Obviously this was something I’d never done before, and that was really enticing.

“Ultimately, playing more than one character was just a question of staying in character while you were playing either Jared or Simon. They’re very different boys, and there is a clear distinction between them.”

The film follows the extraordinary, fantastical events that befall the Grace family – the twin brothers, their sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) and their recently-separated mother Helen (Mary-Louise Parker) – when they leave New York and move into the secluded, old, country house owned by their great-great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick.

Peculiar things start to happen the moment the family arrives at the isolated and dilapidated house. Unable to explain the weird disappearances and accidents that seem to be happening on a daily basis, the siblings investigate what’s really going on – and uncover the magical truth of the Spiderwick estate and the creatures that inhabit it.

Highmore and Bolger are actually quite close in age to the teenagers they play in the film. But they are different from the Grace siblings in one significant way – neither is American. While Highmore’s English, Bolger hails from Ireland.

“I’d done an American accent earlier in the year in the film August Rush, so I guess it was more a case of coming back to that, than having to learn a whole new one again,” says Highmore.

“It was important not to have to think about it when I should be concentrating on emotions and acting opposite special effects. I just hope nobody watches the film thinking, ‘Hang on, there’s a lad from London trying to be a Yank’.”

Highmore and the film-making team deftly delineated the differences between the two brothers he plays from a very early stage.

“We wanted audiences to know immediately whether they are watching Jared or Simon, without making them at all cartoon-like, or defined just by their appearance,” explains Highmore.

“They may be identical twins, but they are very individual. Jared acts tough – he’s the one who’s central to pursuing the mysteries of Spiderwick – while Simon is quieter, more bookish, and they haven’t reacted in the same way to their parents’ splitting up.

“Otherwise, we gave the twins distinctive hair and dress styles. Colour played an important part in distinguishing them. Jared is dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in blacks and reds, while Simon is more subdued in conservative clothes, and lots of greens or browns.”

For Highmore, a lot of the thrill of making The Spiderwick Chronicles involved working with the state-of-the-art computer generated imagery.

“I’ve worked with CGI before, obviously in films like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, so I’m used to acting against ‘nothing’,” laughs Highmore. “Often that means you’re reacting to a tennis ball on a pole, when in the movie you’re reacting to a monster. But playing twins brought in other elements I wasn’t used to. When Jared and Simon were in the same scene, talking to each other, we’d be using photo-doubles, stunt doubles or stand-ins, or often just an orange eye-line cross on a blue screen.

“It meant I had to work hard to get the technical requirements mastered, so that I was free to play whichever twin I was, at any given moment. With a full education programme to fit in, every second of my day was time-tabled. It was non-stop, but great fun.”

More than any other movie he’s worked on, The Spiderwick Chronicles also offered Highmore the chance to flex his action muscles, and perfect some of his own stunts.

“There were some pretty scary scenes to film, but actually shooting those sequences were the most exciting, and you really look forward to them. Clinging to the top of a tower can make your heart race, whether you’re attached to a hidden harness or not. It’s a bit like watching the finished film – even though you know you’re safe, you still get scared.”

Despite the high profile the film has already brought him in America – there are even little plastic figurines of his twin characters in toy-shops – Highmore remains remarkably unfazed by his circumstances, and is determined not to let fame and fortune go to his head.

“I try and maintain as normal a life as possible,” says Highmore, who’s a major football fan – he’s an Arsenal supporter – and loves computer games. “Also, while I’m really enjoying acting at the moment, I’m not sure I would want to carry on doing it as an adult.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if he changed his mind. After all, his mother is theatrical agent Sue Latimer (unsurprisingly, she is her son’s agent as well as Daniel Radcliffe’s), and his father is former Howards’ Way actor Edward Highmore.

The young Highmore made his first film aged just seven, playing Helena Bonham Carter’s son in the 1999 film Women Talking Dirty.

Six years later, he played her son again, as Charlie Bucket, in Tim Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

Last year, he provided the voice of Pantalamoin in The Golden Compass, before taking on the title role in his first American picture, August Rush, with Robin Williams and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Ask Highmore who is his favourite co-star and the answer’s instant – Johnny Depp. “He is a top guy,” says Highmore. “I feel so lucky to have spent so much time with him.”

Meanwhile, the big Hollywood projects keep coming Highmore’s way. Next up, he’ll be providing the voice for the title role of animated adventure Astro Boy.

As for the greater scheme of things in his life, Highmore is happier keeping his options open. “Making movies has been an amazing opportunity, and if things continue like this, I’ll be very happy,” he says. “But I still want to carry on doing all the normal things at school.”

The Spiderwick Chronicles opens today