Freddie Highmore | Unmissable Places to Explore in Canada

0:00The first day I had paella and uttered, which has now gone down in history, family folklore, the infamous words, I was born to be Spanish. The next morning woke up completely ill, having had the very bad prawns and was sick for the entire trip. We were filming with real tigers and we filmed some of the time in Paris. And then for about a month and a half or maybe even two months, we were in Cambodia. Whereas Vancouver, you have to change the way that you live in order to embrace it. My other thing that I, just looking back at that, I feel it's probably the only place in some ways that I don't know.

0:38want to go back to just because it was such a perfect time and a perfect memory that you almost feel it will never live up to what it was to you before.

0:57Welcome to Travel Secrets with me, Tanya Rose, the podcast sharing wisdom for fellow travellers. Each week, I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the holidays and adventures that surround them. I would just like to say thank you to Mason Rose, the sales and communication agency that represents some of the finest hotels around the world for partnering with Travel Secrets the podcast.

1:27Today my guest is the wonderful British actor Freddie Highmore who shot to fame in Finding Leatherland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Spiderwick Chronicles, The Golden Compass. My favorite film you did, though, was A Good Year, because as I told you before, Albert Finney was a very close friend. So you must have had the best time in Provence filming with him. It was. It was absolutely amazing. He was brilliant. And I think the two of us, me as my, you know, very young 11, 12 year old self and him with a little bit more awareness of the world, I think the two of us were equally charmed by just getting to film there.

2:06And we were staying in this hotel up on the cliff in Gord nearby. And it was a brilliant time. Well, he was my son's godfather and he was absolutely wonderful. My son wants to be an actor. So he was always saying to him, why do you want to be an actor? Do you want to be celebrity? And my son was like, I don't know what the question is. I want to act because I love acting. And he said, that's the right answer. So he had good, you know, moral compass. He knew what he was doing. Very much so. and I feel also just during the film during filming itself he sort of became that character in showing me you know you know I got to like drink wine and have taste a cigar for the first time in the film and he was like oh god have a have a little bit and see what it's like exactly at least hopefully it was the the vin perdu or whatever the good one was not the crappy one no no it was all excellent excellent wine um so after you did all your childhood things you then went to Cambridge and you got a double first in Arabic and Spanish.

3:04That's right. So Madrid, I'm sure is something that we'll talk about. Um, and then obviously off to Vancouver, you went to do both Bates Motel and then the Good Doctor, which is just sensational. I absolutely loved it. Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's, um, it was a, a mad sort of 12 years, I guess, between five years on Bates Motel and seven years on The Good Doctor and both of those filming in Vancouver I've spent most of my adult life. Well I'm sure you've got some great tips for us. I may do. I'm sure you do and now you have The Assassin coming out so that will be exciting for you to be back in the UK although it was filmed in Greece I think wasn't it?

3:45It was but it still feels quite British it feels like there's a real British sensibility to it in terms of the sense of humor it doesn't um It's a sort of thriller. Keely Hawes is in it with me and she plays a sort of ex, but potentially needing to get back into assassin. And yeah, we had a great time. It's the sort of thriller high stakes drive, but really it's a story between a mother and son. It sounds amazing. And Keely was on the podcast, which you know, and have listened to and she was great fun. So let's get into your travel secrets. But before we do, perhaps you can just tell us a bit about yourself and how travel has impacted the person that you have become.

4:23I think even just from what you were saying, and we can talk about this more later too, the fact I'd always been interested in languages. I did languages at university, but sort of French and Spanish at school, especially were, you know, from an early age, just the things that I gravitated towards and I was excited by. And I think then the opportunity to travel and go to these places where you were useless at the language but still kind of enjoying trying it anyway and finding that as a way to just access culture and feel um it just felt like those trips and travel was so much more fulfilling when you had that that insight that language that that speaking the language gives you and when you were filming because you filmed from a very young age and obviously went to places to film um I mean had you been on holidays before that or was that your first you know trips abroad and things a few trips to Europe but certainly I think it's I think the thing with acting and that I got as you were saying from a very young age is you get to live in these places and so you know I was able to some some things filmed in London you could go home and that was wonderful but I was also filming in New York and Montreal and Cambodia which is something I want to talk to you about and Provence as we've already said and you get to spend more than just that weekend or week's holiday somewhere you get to spend potentially several months and so there's an element of work but it's also an element of holiday just in the exploration of this new place and I found that actually particularly with Athens last year the show that Keely and I were doing it felt like a city where you need to have more than a few days in order to properly experience it and to find those restaurants that excite you more than others and um yeah that's that's the great luck i guess that i feel i've had with with acting is being able to be in so many different places and get under the skin of that destination exactly and your father used to travel with you because you're obviously very young so yeah he used to come on on set did he and and and come away for a couple of months with you whenever you were filming.

6:33Yes. Yeah, I think it was probably sensible not to let me at, you know, 14 years old off to the other side of the world with someone that I'd never met before. But no, those memories that we have and obviously, you know, family, everyone would visit and just these magical times. Oh, lovely. Well, let's get into your travel secrets then. So what's the number one destination you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime? Well, this may come as no surprise. I know what you're going to say. But having spent 12 years of my life in Vancouver, I'm going to say not just Vancouver, but Vancouver and British Columbia more generally.

7:14It's just such a magical place. And I think anyone who knows me who may be listening to this is also like, yes, we know, Freddie, you are really obsessed with British Columbia. I always get my map out on the phone. And I'm like, oh, you go to this place and this place and like do this and go here and here. So it's just, yeah, the city itself, I think having grown up in London, I sort of arrived with a expectation of Vancouver, sort of finding in Vancouver the things that I loved in London and sort of transplanting it. And actually you realize quite quickly that Vancouver isn't this large city in the way that London is.

7:52it's not as obviously maybe culturally rich in the way that I was lucky enough to get accustomed to as we were talking about before with like films and theatre and you feel like you're at the centre of things in London whereas Vancouver you have to change the way that you live in order to embrace it and by that I think it's getting out and being in nature and realising that you're in this city that's on the water with this seawall that surrounds it these amazing forests that just rise up instantly um yeah the mountains the water whales go by bears are there it's absolutely stunning and also so quickly you can leave the city which is in the grand scheme of things a relatively small city especially for a city that you feel like you know and that you've heard of as a big place and so quickly you're just out in the wilderness in the middle of nothing yeah how lovely so what are your top tips for that well in terms of getting out of vancouver um there's a couple of places that I feel people should definitely go one is Vancouver Island and on the far west coast you can drive all the way over sort of take a ferry and drive over the other side and there's a place called Tofino with this magical hotel that's on the water on Chesterman Beach which is this absolutely stunning beach that you can surf on but also just sit by a cozy fire and look out and enjoy called the Wiccan Inish Inn and that's a bit of an institution and has been there for quite some time in tofino and then just down the road on the west coast there's a little village called uclulet or yuki as the locals like to call it um which is maybe a little bit cooler and a bit more of a discovery um and there's this restaurant that i was lucky enough to go to called pluvio um where you can also stay and that was that was amazing the food was great and it's just these few little rooms above a above an inn oh that's amazing that sounds really beautiful and then the sunshine coast as well which is maybe a little bit less known than vancouver island and is is smaller and there's less there are a few places that you can stay but even just for a day trip from vancouver you can jump on the ferry and you get off and you just feel immediately even in those 45 minutes of being on the ferry that you just arrived in this place where time just slows down and sleepy little villages and and towns with the with the water rising that sounds so beautiful so you spent 12 years there so did you do six years on baits um it was five on baits and then seven on seven on the good doctor and so were you filming all week and then you had weekends off or you had time in between exactly and then just trying to make the most of it and um yeah I would say you know whale watching especially um around sort of September out in the Strait of Georgia just by Vancouver can be pretty spectacular and if you go out in a sort of small little boat you are almost guaranteed or it feels like that in my experience to see these humpback whales just going by and it's the silence of being out there and the stillness on a quiet day and suddenly that was the whale surfaces and goes past and it's just the most magical magical place.

11:11So was it coincidental that you did both back to back and they were both in the same place they weren't the same director or no completely different and actually finishing Bates Motel it was you know very much coming back to London and telling friends you know I've done my time away I've done my five years abroad like I'm coming back soon and then I returned and then the pilot of The Good Doctor started and then quite quickly the show was picked up and some people were like oh I thought I didn't even realize you'd come back I guess you're off to vancouver again how extraordinary though isn't it you spend that much time there i mean so much does film there um do they and so there's a lot i think after uh la and new york or at least it was at the time it's the kind of third biggest production hub in north america but yeah it's a nice it's a lovely lovely place to me i can't speak highly enough of it well that's i could talk to you the entire time no one else has mentioned it so that's fantastic okay great Great.

12:07Everyone says Venice, Venice, Venice. I haven't been to Venice. Venice is on my list. Definitely. It's like high up there. So beautiful. What is your most unexpected travel tale? So I hinted at this earlier. When I was younger, I got to be a part of this film called Two Brothers, which Jean-Jacques Henault directed. And the two brothers were two tigers. And we were filming with real tigers. And we filmed some of the time in Paris. And then for about a month and a half or maybe even two months, we were in Cambodia. It was amazing to be out in the wilderness. It was this place called Mondorkiri that was an eight hour drive sort of off the tourist trail on like a bumpy road.

12:51Or you could take a old military plane that we did on the way back, but it drops sort of, it's unpressurized and starts falling through the sky. You're like, oh my God, what have we done? Oh my God. We should have driven even though it's eight hours. um and they built this because there were no you know it was literally the middle of nowhere and so they made this clearing in a forest and they put up about 300 tents and they built a few little wooden houses and all of the crew just sort of moved there for for filming um and we were you know working with real tigers and i had scenes with real baby tigers and i got it just felt was it a complete not at all it just felt so surreal and magical um and we filmed in cn reap and and core what and they closed down part of it so we could film it was even at that age i think i just realized how lucky i was to be able to be there um i think i was 10 i think i was just finishing primary school so that was one of the first things that you ever did yes yeah i think that was after finding neverland and before charlie and the chocolate factory oh wow because there was quite a big long time between it even though they were released quite soon after each other weren't there you had a few years between the two yeah exactly because I can't even remember I know I read it that there was a reason for the delay it was something to do with I know now I feel like I'm getting so old of my memories so bad from whatever this was but I think there was a different Peter Pan film that had the rights and because there was an element of Finding Neverland that incorporated the play then they had this right to say you can't put it out for another year or so after the other film that had Peter Pan in it was something I'm very glad they put it out and actually I watched it the other day and that scene on the bench is just so amazing oh thank you it really is wonderful and Johnny Depp was wonderful and you were absolutely fantastic did he choose you for Charlie I'm sure there must have been some sort of uh yeah I was probably too young to realize, but I'm sure that had something to do with it.

14:54No, it's so good. And obviously I remember the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well, but my son and all his friends, the one that they always talk about is your one. So yeah, wonderful. Loved it. Loved it. Thank you so much. So what's your most overrated or underrated travel? I mean, overrated, it's always a bit, you always feel a bit mean, don't you? I know, it's quite hard to say. However, I'd say different to what expectations were, maybe, to take the edge off it a little bit, is Whistler, I would say, outside Vancouver. I never ski because I wasn't allowed to ski filming in case I come back on Monday morning with a broken leg.

15:33And they're like, what have you done? And so you go up to Whistler and people would say, oh, the village is very quaint. And to me, if you're expecting a quaint village, I wouldn't go to Whistler. if you're going to ski or to like do these kind of the scenery is spectacular but I think I always gravitate towards if you're going to the wilderness try and like get out there in the middle of nowhere as much as possible as opposed to a quite modern village that's got stuff that feels quite familiar so I would say yeah if you're into all your outdoor sports and activities then great otherwise maybe choose somewhere else or if you want a quaint skiing then go to Switzerland yes exactly because it's not quite the same although people who are skiers love it they say it's amazing they do and there is a really nice um uh sort of outdoor spa called the Scandinave spa that's just maybe five minutes down the road from Whistler where I have been it's beautiful now I'm now I'm like Whistler's the most underrated place um but you can go you do your sort of cold dip and you know cycle through the sauna and the steam room and all of it's outside and especially on a snowy winter's day when you're in the mountains it's it's amazing and what's the underrated one the the underrated experience rather than place is fishing which I was I don't know whether you've ever fished it never appealed to me at all I didn't it I was like absolutely not like it seems incredibly dull I need to be three times as old as I am in order to get out there and enjoy fishing.

17:06However, of course, being in British Columbia, a friend of mine, Max was like, you should come and try salmon fishing. And I just really loved it. I became sort of, it's quite addictive. And I think what it is, is that you, it's not about even keeping the fish, you know, you can just put them back. but the just being out there with a very simple task in the middle of nowhere and suddenly hours and hours go by and I think if you went out in a boat and sort of bobbled around for three hours by the end you'd think well maybe we should be going on and doing something else but something just about sitting there with a simple task that sort of preoccupies you but doesn't really was actually much better than I thought it was going to be.

17:55Oh, how interesting. Have you ever been fishing in Scotland? No, no, I haven't. This is my only experience. So maybe you need to be doing salmon fishing in Scotland next or something, but in wages, you know, when you're weighed out. I do understand that what people say, though, it doesn't really appeal to me. But I think that tranquility and just being at one with nature, and as you say, you put the fish back anyway, so it's not even about that. I think it is that's very good for the soul yes exactly and I think there's an appreciation of it especially in in this day and age and you know I enjoy eating salmon but at the same time it just makes you aware of the yeah of the repercussions of that and you know you're also when you're fishing and suddenly these orca go by and you obviously just stop and just embrace this majestic animal but uh yeah it's it's amazing which takes us beautifully onto food and drink um what do you like eating where do you like eating where's your best meal been or let's just talk about travel and food and drink so one that comes to mind um which i was lucky to go to last year when filming in greece um i had about a week and a half off and went to Santorini I never been to any of these places before in any of the Greek islands I went to Santorini and then Sifnos and Milos and Phologandros and there was this place in Sifnos that was called Cantina and it was just in this just outside of this old town called Kastra I guess it's more of a village really right down by the water and so you can't get there by car it's an old fisherman's hut that's been converted into essentially just a kitchen and then you can you have to just sit outside and you're down by the water you go down this kind of long cobbled um lane to get there and it's just the most beautiful atmosphere it feels so timeless and the fish was just amazing and then a nice sort of white aceritico from santorini it was it was honestly blissful um and so simple but just done so so well so good i love greek food anyway i mean fresh fish but then also the feta and the salads and all of those things are just fantastic aren't they did you love greece i did yeah yeah it was um yeah it was very very special and uh yeah getting to go to all those islands was i thought it was good to go to cantina because then you have to walk all the way back up to the top again so you feel like you've earned it and then there's a couple of bars at the top of the hill one's called um uh logia and then there's another called uh cavos sunrise which is this old guy who isn't cuban but fancies himself as a cuban revolutionary um and so you can you know you feel like you've earned another drink by the time you get back and hopefully not ouzo or metaxa brandy which are only rum in cavos sunrise he's like a pure rum it feel like you're in a different era.

21:00Perfect. So what is your top travel tip? I'd say my top travel tip is to try and enjoy the journey as much as I was getting as much as the destination. That sounds so corny, doesn't it? I know, but it's so good. It's so true. But I do think that sometimes we get so used to the, to the traveling aspect of travel and it's about getting to where we want to be and I think there's a few instances where I've where I felt this one certainly in you know Vancouver and British Columbia where they have these seaplanes and I was saying the ferries and rather than it being just a sort of means to an end you drive on you park your car and then you can go up to the deck and just look around and you're traveling through this most beautiful scenery for 45 minutes similarly with a seaplane it's just you know people pay to just do a tour of Vancouver in a seaplane but you get to go to the Sunshine Coast or go to Vancouver Island over to Tofino in it and even just a plane you know if you can get a window seat and you're just looking out and seeing these spectacular vistas go by that sometimes you miss and you forget as the like window blind is down that actually out there's something amazing and you're flying over the Grand Canyon or you're flying over who knows where.

22:21Yeah. And tell me about Cuba. Yes, Cuba. Um, I, this is maybe, it's so different to any other holiday I've been on. Um, it was probably the holiday that cost the least, but is sort of my fondest memory. Um, my now wife and I I went maybe 10 years ago now or something, a long time ago. And we didn't have a plan at all, which I think is another little tip. We just got there and we were staying with families and you just got to one and you rang up using the landline because there was no Wi-Fi around the island when we were there. And they'd say, oh, yeah, you can stay with my friend at this next place.

23:08And you sort of rent rooms from people and just go as you went. so you're recommended by the people that you were staying with exactly um and there was one in we stayed with this sort of tobacco farmer in vinales um that was relatively near to we we managed to do the kind of whole island but um but yeah this one place was just yeah it was it was amazing and you sort of woken up with warm milk not because it was off but because it had just come fresh that morning and you just sort of sit there in this beautiful setting and very unadorned with the loveliest people and just you know being able to speak the language it was oh yes because you speak spanish don't you yes freddy fox was on the podcast and he absolutely loves cuba and he had like an a diary agenda where he put all the photographs and all the things and he said it was just magical and he kept on saying go to cuba before it's too late yes i guess there was probably an element of that my other thing that I just looking back at that I feel it's probably the only place in some ways that I don't want to go back to just because it was such a it was such a perfect time and a perfect memory that you almost feel it will never live up to your to what it was to you before and so in some ways it's sort of the only place that you just almost never want to go back to because it will never be the same if that makes sense yeah it does and sometimes that is part of travel it's keeping hold of those memories that are so special in your heart and you don't need to go back time and time again I mean I like going back to the same place for a holiday but I think I'm lucky that I travel so much that I go to various other places so I don't have to go back all the time to those um let's go on to your most poignant memory i would say one of the first sort of trips that i really remember doing as a kid was going to barcelona um with my family and it was for my birthday and i was i wanted to be a footballer i was obsessed with Rivaldo I wanted to play for Barcelona and I had also like got the um what were they called the where you could teach yourself the language and on the CD yes yes um and so I would like done that at home on my own and so my parents like okay we can go to Barcelona and so we went and I did manage to see a little bit of the city and also go to a Barcelona game but the first day I had paella and uttered which has now gone down in sort of history family folklore the infamous words I was born to be Spanish the next morning woke up completely ill having had the very bad prawns and was sick for the entire trip but I did manage to go to the to the game but yeah that's hysterical and then you went to Madrid as part of your year at Cambridge abroad yeah so I did a full year in Madrid which is a brilliant city I just think it's in some ways I think Madrid's underrated actually because yes it's a capital but it somehow doesn't get the same attention as other Spanish cities I think it's just this amazing mix of of old Spain of a sort of traditional Spain that is relatively recent in their history when at a time when Franco was in power but at the same time it's incredibly modern and it's sort of at the forefront of so much of Spain and change and La Mavida and there's just so it's that that kind of dichotomy that's that's still there that I find fascinating there's a lovely hotel called the Santa Mauro it's my favorite hotel Madrid it's brilliant and it's just outside the center but you can walk in you're tucked away in a quiet little area but but not you know too far removed and it's just so elegant and so lovely That's exactly where I would tell people to stay.

27:13I did my 72 hours in Madrid recently on my Instagram. And I said, stay at the Santa Mara and then all the different things to do. But the thing that I got most direct messages about was the tapas bar I told people to go to where the owner is obsessed with Julio Inglises. Everything is Julio. And then he starts karaoke and everyone sings it. I tell you, more people have gone to that tapas bar afterwards. It was hilarious. that is so funny forget the Prado yeah they were all going yeah exactly so funny um and also just from Madrid you can explore on the Ave on the really quick train so much of um so much of of Spain including Cordoba where I think is my like favorite building in Spain is the sort of mosque cathedral mash-up I guess for lack of a better word um which is just again like it i think yeah it's just the way that it represents for those who haven't who don't who don't know of it it was originally when the moors were in spain in cordoba which was this huge city especially huge at the time um it was this big mosque and then when during the reconquista when the sort of catholic kings took back the country they chopped out it's like so hard to describe but they kind of took out the middle of this mosque and built a cathedral.

28:37And so you walk in and it feels like you've entered this mosque and you keep going through all of these different arches and it's beautiful. And then suddenly you've realized that you've entered this central space that is now a cathedral. And it's absolutely extraordinary. I've never been to Cordova. I've been to Sevilla and I've been to Granada, which both I love, but I've never been to Cordova. It's on my list, absolutely. and there's a wonderful hotel south of Madrid in the vineyards called Abadilla Retueta which is an old monastery and it is absolutely beautiful and it's so easy to get to on the train I think it's three hours drive but on the train it's only an hour and it's absolutely wonderful so if you go back you must try that out absolutely do do do that and during your year out did you go to you did Arabic as well did you go and study that somewhere abroad as well unfortunately not I never got the chance it was my year abroad given that I mean I'm not that old but it was a while ago when I was a good um yeah maybe like 13 years ago and it was during the time of the Arab Spring okay and so the university had to give you permission to go to um whatever country you were choosing to go to and the options were quite limited so I ended up just focusing on on the Spanish.

29:56And do you speak Arabic? No, it's sort of fallen by the wayside, but my Spanish is pretty, is my Spanish and French. I kept that out from school. And when you went to Greece, because you're a linguist, do you, did you pick a little bit of Greek up when you were there? No, I think that I'm, unfortunately, other than the very basics. Calimera, Calispera. Yeah. I learned the alphabet that felt like a necessity. Oh, that's very good. Well, I think just because you started to like need it, it was it was odd to feel yeah it was odd I think being in a European country where you expect to be able to look up and read a sign and you'd look up and you think I have no idea what this road is called because all of them look they're in a different alphabet and so then I would yeah I felt the need to learn that that's amazing there's none of that putting a photograph on chat tpt or whatever I should have I should have no no learn the aspects much much better um I asked you to bring a photograph.

30:54Can you show us the photograph and can you describe the photograph and tell us why you've chosen that photograph? I'm not quite sure why. In my head now, I'm still thinking I should choose another photograph, but at this point I've committed to bringing this one. So I'm going to show you this photograph and it's definitely not the sort of photograph that I imagine most people will bring along, but there was a reason for it. So this is the photograph.

31:24well tell me about the photograph so the photograph is the back it's a car um a rental car that i had at the time in the back of a ferry in vancouver and it's the last one allowed on and this was the last ferry that night and so yeah there's a barrier right behind the car and you sort of go down a drawbridge in order to board these ferries and we were on the drawbridge and they were like no you've got to go back there's no space and then other people were like no no no you can come like we'll sneak you in and so everyone sort of inched forward and we were literally the last one on and would have otherwise had to go back the next day and I guess the reason I chose it other than the obvious love for Vancouver and ferry travel generally is I just think the idea that those little things going right can mean so much whenever you travel and it's the stuff that sometimes you just can't plan that ends up being this big win and it was such a celebration when we got on the ferry you were so happy yeah and I think but also it could have gone so differently and you could have gone down a whole other path and maybe that would have been magical too but it just sliding doors the sliding doors and it reminded me of that when traveling that as much as you have a plan sometimes things will go wrong and they will go a bit differently but that's just sort of to be embraced and part of the joy of traveling.

32:47I love that. That's such a wonderful philosophy. I actually thought you were going to say it was the last episode of The Good Doctor and I didn't get there or something like that but no it's a much nicer poignant story. So before I let you go where are you going next and what's next for Freddie Highmore in the world of acting? So I it's been really nice to be back this side of the world. I think it's clear from this that I've enjoyed my time in North America, but at the same time, yeah, getting to come back home and sort of do more things over here, um, and travel more in Europe. I find myself, I, I, I, I sort of catch myself as like a North American who's like arrived in Europe saying it's so close.

33:34All of these places are so accessible. And now I don't, I always sort of laugh at them before. And now I've become one of them because you do appreciate how how accessible you can I'm really I'm stating the obvious but you can jump on a train and then you're in France and those things that are so far away when you're not in Europe um and so hard to imagine and so I'm just looking forward to kind of getting to explore a little bit more of Europe and um yeah as much as possible and what about acting what are you doing next I'm working on something at the moment I'm writing something um which I can't unfortunately speak about but it is exciting to be doing so you're starting to do more on writing and producing as well aren't you yeah I um I was lucky on The Good Doctor to and Bates Motel to kind of be involved in the wider process um and yeah sort of directed and and wrote and produced and just really enjoy that and want to try and do more of that well we all look forward to seeing you in The Assassin can't wait and to seeing things that you've written and produced.

34:39How exciting. And any help you need in Europe, you know who to call. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.