Freddie Highmore
There is such physicality to the way you play Shaun Murphy in The Good Doctor — was that based on research into people who have autism?
I think it’s necessary to make a distinction between aspects of Shaun and his personality and his identity that are linked to the fact that he has autism, and then other things that aren’t necessarily so. And then sometimes, of course, it’s hard to separate whether certain mannerisms, or the way that he walks, are perhaps more common among people who have autism. But I don’t think, for example, the way he runs necessarily comes from the fact that he has autism — it just sort of seemed to me that that’s how Shaun would run. The main point is that Shaun can’t represent everyone who is on the spectrum, and so one shouldn’t necessarily look at Shaun and think that everything that he does is a result of the fact that he has autism.
In that sense, how did you approach the character in a way that made for good drama but also was sensitive to the autism community?
From the start, [creator] David Shore and I wanted to make sure that Shaun was portrayed as authentically as possible, and in a way that was the primary aim when constructing the character. And when you have this character who hopefully is a fully-formed human being, then you can put him into these situations that will cause entertainment, or cause people to want to come back and watch.
Do you have anyone in your life that has autism or savant syndrome?
Not savant syndrome, but people who have autism. And that’s one of the remarkable things about doing the show, is the surprising lack of characters who have autism, certainly on television or as a lead character on TV. So many people I’ve spoken to over the course of the last few months have a personal connection to it . . . it’s somewhat surprising that a character like Shaun hasn’t been portrayed in the same way beforehand, or at least not to my knowledge. Or not owned — not in the same way. I guess the other fear is that some portrayals of autism can err into comedy and exploitation. Did you guys have any active techniques to avoid that?
I don’t think that we’re ever laughing at Shaun — if anything, I think he makes us laugh at ourselves, and at the ways in which certain codes and rules of society have been constructed. He asks questions that resonate with us in a humorous way because we recognise them, we recognise the inconsistencies behind the questions that he asks, but maybe are too afraid to ask them ourselves.
Like the moment in the pilot where he asks a fellow doctor, ‘Why are you now being nice to me when you were rude before: which time were you being honest?’ It spoke to the way people deceive each other, often without meaning to.
Yeah, on one hand, Shaun does struggle socially, and he struggles with communication, and at times identifying emotions in other people. But he also is very perceptive in ways that neurotypical people aren’t, and I think people will learn from Shaun. [People ask], “How do you feel that Shaun is accepted or tolerated?” And I guess it makes me slightly uneasy using those terms. Because it’s not merely a matter of accepting Shaun in the sense of putting up with him, or allowing him into the society that’s already there, but it’s also the idea of learning from Shaun, and changing our attitudes based on things that he can bring.
There was an adviser on set from the autism community. Did she give you any memorable tips?
She quoted a commonly used phrase within the autism community, which is that when you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism. Which I think is freeing, because though you’re working within certain realities perhaps, it has to feel authentic to Shaun as a person … What’s been exciting is seeing how he evolves, how he changes and how he adapts to this new environment.