Freddie Highmore had just arrived for a three-day promotional tour in Sydney when the announcement came that The Good Doctor had been renewed for a second season by America’s ABC network.
But, for Highmore, the news that the hospital series in which he stars and on which he also works as a producer would continue did not exactly come as a surprise. The most successful series launched by a US broadcast network last year, The Good Doctor charts the trials and triumphs of Dr Shaun Murphy, a surgical resident at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital who is autistic and has savant syndrome. It was the ABC’s most-watched program in 13 years. And it travels well: in Australia, the series’ breakout popularity is credited with reviving hope for the possibilities for imported drama on free-to-air networks, as well as boosting Channel Seven’s primary channel sufficiently to enable it to claim a slim win in the ratings for 2017.
So what’s the key to its broad and trend-busting appeal? “I think there’s something about Shaun’s optimism and hopefulness that has resonated with people,” says Highmore. “He always sees the good in people and has a positive view of humanity and the human condition in a time when there’s so much negativity.
“Shaun speaks not only to people who have autism, or are close to those who do, but to anyone who feels somewhat different, or feels like society has maybe not dealt them a fair hand, or that they’ve been discriminated against in the work place. He speaks to people who feel that they haven’t had their fair shot in life, or their chance to shine.”
The series opened with the young doctor moving from his hometown in Wyoming to a big-city hospital under the protective eye of his mentor, hospital president Dr Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff). The shift launched him into a scenario that bears striking similarities to that of the hit series House, which is no great surprise given that David Shore created both. Though The Good Doctor was originally inspired by a Korean TV series, like House, it features a racy pace, a perpetual sense of urgency and a procession of complicated and sometimes confounding cases. There’s also a competitive group of doctors making up its workplace family and, at its heart, a brilliant diagnostician who struggles with social interaction and communication. In The Good Doctor, the compassion and emotional intelligence in the multicultural medical team is supplied by Shaun’s fellow surgical resident, Dr Claire Browne (Antonia Thomas).
Shaun doesn’t have Gregory House’s irascibility: he’s more gently curious and never judgmental. His abruptness is disarming and unwitting. “He has a knack for cutting through the facades that people put up and going directly to the point in his line of questioning,” says Highmore. “He’s incredibly perceptive.”
Highmore notes that the first season charted Shaun’s struggle for independence – moving away from home, sorting out his relationship with Glassman – and his learning about whom he can trust.
Highmore plays his character with his eyes darting around or fixed on the middle distance when he speaks, often avoiding eye contact with his colleagues and patients. He also clasps his hands together almost protectively in front of his stomach. He says that he adopted that stance because “sometimes people who have autism are thought to keep their hands in that position to control certain movements. But also it came from a desire to connect more to Shaun’s emotional journey, him being ready for surgery, because that’s how surgeons hold their hands in an operating theatre because only the upper part of the body is considered sterile.”
Highmore was offered the plum role as he finished work on Bates Motel after five seasons. So, instead of killing people as Norman Bates, he now works at saving them. The 26-year-old Londoner, who started acting in films at the age of seven, says he welcomed the change. “As an actor, you want to push yourself and challenge yourself with things that are new and different to those you’ve played before. You don’t want to play the same roles again and again.”
Between his time as a child actor (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, August Rush) and a TV series star, he’s studied Arabic and Spanish at Cambridge University in the UK.
Following his first, rapid visit to Australia, Highmore reckons he’s tempted to escape winter in Vancouver for longer after the next season wraps and perhaps organise a stay that might include Melbourne and the Australian Open: “This is the first time in months I’ve seen any sun, people in T-shirts and shorts and flip flops”, he says a little wistfully. However, he did manage to squeeze in a visit to Bondi and a cliff-top walk before graciously facing a veritable blizzard of media commitments.
