The Assassin star Keeley Hawes verdict to co-star: “You’d be a brilliant Bond”

Keeley Hawes’s screen successes range from Spooks and Ashes to Ashes to Bodyguard and Miss Austen.

Meanwhile, since his breakthrough in Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Freddie Highmore has juggled films with lead roles in US TV shows Bates Motel and The Good Doctor.

They’re united in Amazon’s comic thriller The Assassin – now back for a second run – in which Hawes plays Julie, a contract killer forced out of retirement when ghosts from the past threaten her and her estranged son Edward (Highmore).

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Did you expect to be back so soon for a second season of The Assassin?

Keeley Hawes: It was a quick turnaround.

Freddie Highmore: It was surprisingly quick, in a great way. They were like, “We need you to come back as soon as possible because…” I think the phrase that was used was, “If a show has been off the air too long, it decays.” And we didn’t want to decay.

KH: No one wants to decay, do they?

Keeley, you turned 50 between filming both seasons. Is it empowering to be playing “a perimenopausal James Bond”, as Edward memorably calls her?

KH: I think so. It’s written by two middle-aged men [Harry and Jack Williams], and they get it. In terms of the big set pieces, I’m having a ball. Julie’s a bit fitter this series, so there’s less groaning when I get up off the ground. But she’s no gym bunny. I’m still a woman in my 50s.

Can you channel Julie’s badass attitude at home – like warning your children to think twice before messing with you?

KH: I do have really quite dark thoughts about people that perhaps I didn’t have before – like if someone’s on a video call on the train. That could also be my age. But I’m blaming Julie as well.

Freddie, Edward is not a natural action hero. Would you like to be a bit more Bond?

FH: People keep asking me if Edward’s going to learn how to hold a gun properly. But I think the fun is in the way he counter- balances Julie. He doesn’t conform to your typical male lead stereotype.

So your agent hasn’t put you forward for the 007 role?

KH: I thought I’d skilfully avoided that question! All I’d say is Edward probably isn’t the best character to demonstrate that side of me.

FH: You’d be a brilliant Bond.

Keeley, technically you’re slightly too young to be playing Freddie’s mum. Is your off-screen relationship more like mates?

KH: Am I too young? How old are you now, Freddie?

FH: I’m 34. So you’d have just turned 16 when I was born. But the characters don’t really fit into the trappings of a mother-and-son dynamic, either. It’s more like they’re siblings, or the worst of friends.

KH: Julie’s always treated Edward as an adult. You know how some grown-ups treat children that way? Like they’re an adult from birth.

Freddie, your screen mums have included Kate Winslet, Helena Bonham Carter, Mary-Louise Parker and Vera Farmiga. Who’s your favourite?

FH: Well, of course it’s Keeley.

KH: That’s a great line-up to be in.

FH: I’ve had such wonderful mothers. Vera and I did five seasons of Bates Motel together and I adore her. And I feel the same way about Keeley. Getting to work with her every day is just a joy.

Keeley, this year we’ve seen you as a nun in Falling and an assassin. Which is closest to the real you?

FH: You’ve heard the way she looks at people on the Tube…

KH: Yeah, I don’t know what it says about me, those two roles. But I’m probably more like Julie. I’m not ready for the nunnery.

You both have your own production companies and Freddie, you’re producing an upcoming miniseries about the Cadbury family. Does it feel like a full-circle moment, going back to the chocolate factory?

FH: It’s funny, isn’t it? It honestly wasn’t the driving force behind my involvement.

KH: Had you thought of that?

FH: Not at the start. Then people started going, “Oh, ha ha.” And I was like, “Oh yes. I see.”

You both started out as child actors. Did it make you grow up fast?

KH: I suppose you’re expected to behave in a more adult and responsible way. But then you are also with adults who, by the nature of what they do, are incredibly playful.

FH: Yeah, a lot of actors are more childlike than the kids at school. But I feel very lucky. If you offered me the chance to go back and roll the dice again, I’d say no. Because why would I risk changing things?

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The Assassin Season 2 is on Prime Video from 6 November.

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