The Paikin Podcast - Freddie Highmore & David Shore: How to Build an Authentic Autistic Character

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

"The Good Doctor" Freddie Highmore and David Shore join Steve for a live taping of the podcast to discuss their hit ABC show, its seven-season run, how to get the character of an autistic doctor right, why Shore did not want Shaun Murphy to be TV’s “autistic character” but a particular individual, and the possibility of a “House” crossover. Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastX: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.socialEmail us at: [e-mail]

Hi, everybody, Steve Paken here. You may remember some time ago, we presented a bit of a different episode of the Paken podcast. Hugh Lorry from House and the creator of that show, David Shore, went to the Forest City Film Festival in London, Ontario, and were guests on stage interviewed by yours truly at an event which was honoring David Shore. It was a pretty cool experience to see these two, frankly, broadcasting legends on the stage. Well, we're doing it again. David not only did House, but there was another show that just wrapped up a year ago, again a medical drama called The Good Doctor, starring Freddie Highmore as a doctor who had to deal with autism. And I'll tell you, it was a fascinating experience interviewing David on stage in London and having Freddie zoomed in to participate in the discussion as well.

So let's do that now. Here's the Paken podcast Two-on-One, David Shore and Freddie Highmore, coming right up. I'd like to, while we grab our seats here, also introduce somebody who is not in London, Ontario, but maybe in London, England. I don't know, we should find out. Ladies and gentlemen, can we see zoomed or beamed in from afar Freddie Highmore. Freddie, are you there? Hello. Freddie, where are you exactly?

You are correct. I'm in the other London. The other London. Okay, very good. As it's known. As it's known. I want to just sort of do a little bit of memory lane here with the two of you and find out, well, let's start with this. Freddie, how well did you know David personally and or professionally before you started

working together on this show, The Good Doctor? Professionally, of course, I was aware of David and House. I didn't know quite as much as I just got to see then in the documentary. In fact, I'm not sure I knew all of that before this moment, so that was lovely to see. And then before we started working together, I guess the sort of accurate answer to your question would be that David and I sat down to make sure that we would or hope that we would, We would actually get along before working together. I feel it was a wonderful first little chat at Adelie in L.A.

We bonded. We saw the show the same way. And then, yeah, off we went. Freddie, you'd finished Bates Motel like a few hours before we met, right? It was a little short. Yeah, I filmed Bates Motel in Vancouver. We ended up shooting The Good Doctor in Vancouver as well. so Canada is very close and dear to my heart but it was yeah we literally just finished

I flew down to L.A., had no intention whatsoever of jumping into another television show having just done one for five years and it truly, I'm not just saying this but it took not only such a special script that David had written but also just him being such a wonderful human being as well as talented intellectual, smart human being

to persuade me to jump right into something else, having days before been convinced that would never be possible. How well did you know him before you wanted him for your show? Just, well, I knew he was Charlie. Charlie and the... As in Willy Wonka, Charlie.

Yes, yes. That's where you were waiting. You saw that and were like, I'm going to write a medical drama for this guy, but it's going to take him a while to grow up. But you didn't know him personally. I did not know him personally. You know, I'd seen a little bit of Bates Motel.

And then he was brought up. This is one of the rarest statements you're going to hear. This happened because of a network executive. Somebody said, have you considered Freddie Highmore for the part? Because the script had been written. And so I watched a little more Bates Motel. and realize this guy's a really good actor. Very different part, obviously,

but this guy's a really good actor. And then I met with him, and it was that breakfast more than anything that made me realize how thoughtful and deep and professional and personable this guy is, and I was sold. And yeah, and so, It was just, again, I had two really amazing experiences with an actor who brought what I,

elevated it. Okay, but let me jump in here, because yesterday when we were talking with Hugh Lurie, you confessed that you considered as many as 18 different actors for the role of House. It was way more than that. More than that, okay. But not serious. I mean, we auditioned dozens. But what about for this part?

This one was different. I don't think we ever auditioned anybody for this. I think his name came up. We met with him and offered him the part, and he turned us down. Oh, Freddie, there's a story there. Why'd you turn him down? Well, I sort of didn't really. It's the same story.

It was the same thing. It was just so soon. It was like, well, this is preposterous. I think it was also the amount of good fortune that I felt on Bates Motel. It just felt like you couldn't get lucky enough. to have something come up so soon, and it was so hard to believe, really, that that would be possible. And I also think, which David, of course, knows very well himself from House, that when you have had a long experience of several years where you are wholly committed to

something, and it kind of takes over your entire life. You want to be entirely certain that in success, you want to be doing this for many, many years, and that you also want to be working in such close collaboration with the person who ended up being David. And that's one of the things that I admire most about David is I think we bonded over him being, he sort of wholly commits to every show that he has done in a way that I think is incredibly rare in Hollywood. I think a lot of people in his position would,

have done house and say, I'm going to get 10 shows that are on the air and I'll put my name to all of them and I'll kind of dip in and out. But David really enjoys doing the work and enjoys writing these characters and being involved on such an intimate level every single day year after year after year. And I've always just been so amazed by that. And at the same time, to go back to signing onto the show, you kind of think, well, hopefully this person has that, but we should make sure because we're going on this huge long journey together. In fairness, by the...

You also don't want to sign up to something hoping that it's going to never get picked up to series, so you have to hope that it will be many years. When you're a star of a TV show, as he was on Batesmontoni, he wasn't the conductor, but that is an exhausting experience, and you were at the end of five years, and he'd been working very hard,

and I think you came off at going, I'm looking forward to a few months of doing nothing and then your agent who doesn't appreciate that sent you the script and I like to think you read it and said damn this is good I'm so annoyed

that's exactly you know that's exactly the case yes it was that and then meeting I actually have a vivid memory of calling home after like being on the street in LA after the I sort of went into the meeting almost thinking well

this is a great script, but like the guy's not going to be very nice or we're not going to really bond and then it will be an easy decision and I'll go back to London. I hadn't decided which London I was going back to, but it was probably London in the UK. But I remember kind of coming out

and just being on the phone and it was, well, how did it go? And I was like, ah, wow, it was kind of great. I really like him. So David, if you started at No with Freddie, how did you get him to yes? came back to, it was a brief no, and I think it was just, I just

can't, I think, I'm speaking for you, Freddie, but I think it was just, I can't do this and then 48 hours later he went, I can't not do this. How did, take us into, I guess, sorry, we know exactly where we had lunch, we know what table we had it at, and we went back after the show

was done, the two of us went back. To the same place? Yeah. How come? It was an important place. I presume there were, I mean, once Freddie agreed to sign on and do this part. I presume, David, there were discussions between the two of you as to, you know, just what kind of character the good doctor would be. For example, you know, how many manifestations of autism Dr. Murphy would demonstrate or not. Take us into some of those discussions.

How did you work all that out? We had a lot of talks, and I think either of us could answer this question very similarly because it was a similar process. Right from, that meal. We were thinking that was the largest part of that conversation. And we know the world and particularly the part of the world that's familiar with that and cares about that for obvious reasons because it's personal to them are going to be looking at us very, very closely. And we didn't want to let them down. That would be just wrong. And so we wanted, the number of The number one thing was that we didn't want him to be television's autistic character. We wanted him to be, and this is so obvious, but it's not always the case, a fully formed,

as everybody is, is it a fully formed human being who happened to have autism. And so it was very important that he wasn't just up there as a representative. He was a human being, and it was incredibly gratifying, actually. It was one of the really most significant things of the show was hearing from that community and hearing positive things from that community. Freddie, you want to build on that? I mean, David always speaks much more eloquently than I do.

I feel I rabbit on and go off on very long tangents, and David has like a very pithy, succinct way of just summarizing exactly what needs to be said. So I'm not sure what to add to that other than agree, and I guess say that, which we were discussing the other day, but wanting to tell, we always wanted to just tell Sean's story. And of course, we wanted to represent autism as authentically as possible through him. but at the same time he was never going to represent everyone who is on the spectrum nor should he in the way a neurotypical

lead character of a television show is never going to represent everyone who's neurotypical in the world and so I think once we'd established who he was as a character it was the exciting thing was kind of building on that and digging into not just how might

someone who has autism react to something but how would Sean as an individual react to this and what are his kind of unique quirks and what's his sense of humor what are his desires, what are the things and the people that he falls in love with and that kind of became the journey of the show.

Freddie, you may believe that David is more eloquent than you but I think we have to remember that regardless of what you say, whether it's an answer to one of these questions or just reading the phone book, you have a British accent and therefore you will win every time. Thank you. Yeah, I have that to fall back.

and then I stripped him of it for the show. Well, that's twice in a row. Maybe we should talk about that right now because, again, we talked about this yesterday with Hugh Lorry, that he was not to use his British accent when he performed Dr. House. And here you've got Dr. Murphy, again,

a British actor, David, not being allowed to use his British accent. Any discussion around that with Freddy? I would briefly like to chime in and say that I am so, I'm not just very grateful to David, but also to Hugh Lorry, because I think if Hugh Lorry had done the pilot of House and completely messed it up and it was a disaster,

David would never have hired another Brit again to play the main park in one of his shows. And so, you know, I have a lot to thank him for too. Why no British accent for Freddie's character? Because the character was from Wyoming. But you could have made him from, you know, you could have made him an import from London, England. I don't rewrite. I just, I do, but he knew what he was getting into. Okay. Freddie, I want to know if there were ever any moments on the show, and I have to believe that during the course of seven years, you must have had some creative difference over something. And I just wonder what it might have been. Can you give us an example and how you and David might have resolved it?

I mean, honestly, off the top of my head, I can't think of something. Of course there must have been things. I think we would always, the thing about David and I is we're both quite obsessed with the tiny little details. And so the debates, almost the biggest debates would sometimes be, do you think you need the word just in this sentence? Is it better with the just or without the just? and that would be sort of a 20-minute conversation and David would think about it and sometimes the just would be removed

or sometimes the just would be added or like it would be remaining exactly as it should have been before. But I think, yeah, I can't think of a... There genuinely wasn't any kind of ever big front of difference. We had a big fight about Freddie wanted him to be just an average doctor and I said, no, he has to be a good doctor.

Now, I'm tempted Freddy to follow up. and say, are you, are you being serious when you say you might have a 20 minute discussion over whether to use one word or not? He is. Yes, I'm not, I'm not, I'm perhaps exaggerating if you're, if you want the specifics, like maybe 20 minutes is a little, but it, but at least five, that would not be an exaggeration. Because I think we both just sort of cared so deeply about those little things and saw that they both mattered.

It's a little bit like what David Houselton, um, who, wrote on The Good Doctor as well as House was saying about David in the documentary of just how he does a he cares so deeply about every little thing and all of it does add up and all of it matters whether that's an individual word or um yeah anything to do with the the the creation of a television show yeah no we we um i'm one of those dictators on set sort of that I want them to deliver the script as written exactly. Like, they don't go there and ad lib. Because we've spent a lot of time working on every word, that doesn't mean I'm right about everything, and so that's what leads to this, is he will come to me and say,

that sentence, is that, you know, exactly right, that word, do we need that word, should that be there? Is it slowing it down in some way? Is it overstating it? And we would literally sit there and talk about that word and then we would reach an agreement on what it should be. Did you ever compromise or yield on a suggestion from an actor? I don't think I would have not in any, well, not even in any insignificant, probably here and there, but it was, he would have to convince me that he was right. That happened plenty of times, but I don't consider that a compromise. I don't think I ever went.

I'm right and you're wrong, but we're going to do it your way. Sometimes, I mean, sometimes I would say do it both ways. Take a run. Like, I wouldn't know the answer. That would happen quite a bit. Do it both ways.

And who would you use in the end? I would then, so I had control generally, although he was a producer, he was a real producer, and he would give notes on the cuts. You know, we would do a director's cut, an editor's cut, director's cut, and then we'd do a producer's cut,

You know, we'd send that to Freddie, and he would give us notes about, he said, he was remarkable, actually, that he was absolutely remarkable. He would go, I know there was another take where I did this, and it would just be a subtle difference. Maybe you want to take a look at that, and so I'd look at that and go, yeah, that was good, or, and he would always give us a funny little version, which he would, always subtle, always subtle differences, and it'd be like eight funny things in every episode he would do. he would know. We would talk about this. If we used all eight, it wouldn't work. But if we use three, it would work fantastic. And so it was a question of choosing the three. But yeah, so I'd go on editing and I think I had an open mind and would go, yeah, if what he did was good, you know. Freddie, tell us why at the end of the day, you know, for those of us who are not inside that kind of artistic process, why do all of those what seem like very small, tiny even

decisions. When you add them all up, why do they matter to the overall outcome of whatever it is you're doing? Well, I guess the first thing is I would very much like to think that they do. But I think the reason why they do is because it's, of course, it's less about one individual moment. And I'm sure I'm sure that if one particular beat was different, the entire show wouldn't have been ruined. But at the same time, I think it's the attitude that you need in order to make something as good as it can possibly be and bring that attitude in every single day, whether you're on set or whether you're in the writer's room or whether you're going to the editing room. I think it does require just doing your absolute best. And I think that's

partly the way that my mind works, perhaps, of just you live wholeheartedly in something and you care so much that you, that everything does matter. And almost the slippery slope to me feels like the moment you say, ah, well, that scene wasn't so good, but that's okay. Then everything starts slipping. And I think one of the things that I know both David and I are proud of is that I think everyone on the show, the crew, instead of coming in every day, wanted it to be as good as it could be. And I think it's probably especially important on a show like the good doctor or on house where there is a procedural element. There are certain things that are the same every week. There is usually a surgery. There are new patients that come in. You're in

a lot of the same locations and sets. And so it would be easy to fall into a pattern of just doing the same thing every week and ticking over and just sort of saying, well, we did it this way last week and it was good. So let's just do it the same again. But that to me again seems like not only the sort of death of the creative process, but then it starts to be what's the point. And as David was alluding to, see, this is one of my long winded answers. As David was alluding to, I think it does take so much. out of you and your family and to make a show, like when you're doing 20 episodes every single year for years and years, that you have to really love it and put everything into it. Otherwise, it would be a pretty miserable seven years. Freddie was just, I was starting to talk about this,

but I didn't finish my own thought. As a producer, he was remarkable, and it relates to that. You know, he'd be on the set, we'd be doing a scene, there was a surgery scene, and we've done 50, 100 surgeries before, and he would be constantly looking for a new way to approach it, a new way to do it, he'd be critique, you know,

he'd be, he'd be, he'd made suggestions to every one of our crew's, crew members, and that sounds like he was annoying. He was not. They all loved him. He was, he was great. As I said the other night, Whatever you do for a living, if Freddie Highmore sends in an application for a job, hire them. Doesn't matter what it is. I always sign up if David offers you a job, then definitely do it,

and don't almost do what I didn't turn him down. I want to circle back to something we touched on a few minutes ago, which was the notion that the neurodiverse world would have been watching this program carefully to make sure that they felt seen and portrayed in whatever the way they thought was appropriate. And I wonder how you kind of went about making sure that you did right by that world. The basic way, which is research met with people,

met with organizations, spoke to individuals, read a lot of books, we had a consultant on the show, specifically dealing with that, and Freddie did likewise. Yeah, Freddie, did you ever have moments where perhaps you're in the middle of a scene and maybe the onset advisor says,

well, that really wouldn't happen that way and therefore a change was made or something like that? I'd say like a lot of things on the show we'd figure that out ahead of time. It felt, and I think probably that was necessary as well for the process.

of feeling free, as David was saying, free to try different things. And Sean, I found an incredibly freeing character to play. And there were lots of potential ways that he could be reacting in a certain moment. And it was always fun and interesting to explore all of those as opposed to that onset experience feeling limiting. And so I think the process of the research was doing that ahead of time. ahead of time, talking about it ahead of time, so that then you can go on and sort of forget about it all and just do what feels right, knowing. It's sort of like learning lines. You don't

want to show up on set and not really know your lines and try and figure that out. You want to know them so well that then, especially with David, you know, because he cares so deeply about them. You want to get there and know them so well that you can feel free to try different things and not be thinking, oh, what's that line again? You know, I suspect there's a part of everybody in this audience here that imagines a future, I don't know what, television series, special, movie, David, with both of your British-speaking but American-sounding doctors in the same episode. Can you imagine that happening? I thought of that as the show was going on. I thought, do I get Hugh into Vancouver?

He was always pretty busy, but I didn't do it, because as delightful as that sounds, I'm not a big fan of meta stuff where you're like, oh, it's Dr. House with Dr. Burby. I think I always was committed to the audience really believing they're watching an actual scene and not watching two actors having fun together or whatever. And so I worry about that. I've broken that rule on a few occasions because that's what you do with rules. But I generally, if something is going to, if something's too cute, I don't want to do it. If something's going to take the audience out of it, which I think that would have.

And it's too late now also. Is it really too late? I've never met Hugh, which I feel like I must have and feel like I, but we have never met or interacted. Oh, is that possible? I will correct. I know. So the other thing, I should have come to London, clearly, because it's my own fault on this occasion. But the other thing I'd say about David, which is a, this is me setting him up for an anecdote, but the last, I think it was the finale of House, I think this summarizes David's approach to storytelling and lack of an ability to like get rid of whatever the phrase is, kill your darlings.

but he was in, he was going to be in, the last episode of House. Yes, I was supposed to be. I had, I guess this does go. I, I had a cameo. I cast myself in the last episode of House, and I actually had a speaking part, and we filmed the scene, and I was directing the last episode of House.

I've had fun with that. I directed the last episode of The Good Doctor. It's fun being able to. to be that involved in the final moment. But I, so I asked our directing producer to kind of direct that scene that I was in because, obviously, if you're in the scene, you can't be behind the camera.

If I'm supposed to be looking at you and there's this other person in the scene, I can't be looking at them, I gotta look at you, so I, it's really difficult to direct yourself. Freddie's done it very effectively on a number of occasions. I don't know, so we come to my scene and I think I nailed it,

but mostly, And then the directing producer at one point during the scene comes over to me with a note about what are the other actors, and he starts telling me the note. He goes, I'm not sure he's, and I just go, oh, don't worry, this scene's going to be cut. And it was. It wasn't in the last thing. Okay, I've got one last question. I noticed that Freddie's character and his love interest have a son named Stephen.

And I wonder who possibly could have been the inspiration for the choice of that name. Stephen was the name of his brother. Oh, I'm so happy for you, Freddie, and disappointed for me. Not Freddy's brother. Now, within the show, in the pilot, you will, I think that he has, has everybody seen the pilot? You're about to see that, right? So you've seen it. Spoiler, okay?

You wouldn't be here if you hadn't seen the pilot, right? Steven, I'll explain it to you, who has to you, who had to you, apparently have not seen it. One of the inspirations of Dr. Murphy becoming a doctor was the death of his brother, Stephen. Okay, I knew about that because I'd read about that. But I was also hoping that maybe just a little wee bit of the name might have come from... One of my best friends was named Stephen.

That would have been the short answer. That was the answer I was looking for, but there you go. And that's what I named the character for. Freddie, it's awfully good of you to join us from all the way across the pond, a continued success with everything you do, and it's really great of you to spend so much time with us here, from London to London. Take good care. Thank you.

Thank you, Freddie. Freddie, Himore, everybody. And now we're going to go see the aforementioned show. So how about we give it up for Mr. David Shore, for coming back to London, Ontario. Way to go, Shorzie. Thank you.