The Good Doctor star Freddie Highmore opened up on being backstage at talk shows, revealing the peculiar atmosphere he’s endured over the years as he recalled being shoved into a broom closet by “secret service agents” so one host wouldn’t see him.
Freddie Highmore, 31, made his film debut 24 years ago and has graced countless series, film sets and talk shows, not all of which have been a positive experience.
Most recently the star joined Jimmy Kimmel on his titular show Jimmy Kimmel Live! just after filming wrapped on the sixth season of the highly acclaimed medical drama The Good Doctor, where Freddie’s role as Dr Shaun Murphy has garnered him global acclaim.
The host started the show by slightly exposing the actor, revealing that he’s “very polite, very friendly” and went out of his way to send “a nice little email” prior to his appearance on the show.
Jimmy joked: “No one has ever really looked forward to seeing me. So I appreciated that.”
However, Freddie explained it wasn’t just Jimmy he was eager to see again: “I also just look forward to the backstage, it’s the best setup back there. You’ve got the bar set up.
“I’ve done other shows where it’s definitely been more challenging.”
Jimmy quickly agreed, saying some backstages can be “like a prison at an amusement park”, while Freddie explained that the email was even a risk for him as “some hosts don’t even want to interact with the guests before they come out”.
The actor carefully constructed his next few sentences, wary of giving away too much but aware that his extensive list of talk show appearances would make it fairly difficult for fans to narrow down.
Freddie shared: “This host doesn’t like seeing guests beforehand and so I was coming backstage with a couple of the producers and they looked up and saw the host at the end of the corridor.
“They were really really scared and they grabbed me and threw me into the next door right by that hallway and it was a broom closet. A dark broom closet.
“I was there for about a minute and they were like these secret service agents on their phone like, ‘Are we clear? Are we clear? Have they gone? Can we bring him out?’ Terrified.”
As Jimmy sat back aghast at what he was hearing, Freddie noted that he quickly “walked out as if nothing happened” and again complimented the host saying: “This is a much more pleasant way of spending my evening. Thank you for being a decent human being.”
