The photo at left shows a ten-year-old Freddie Highmore playing Peter to Johnny Depp’s J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. Now Freddie (real name Alfred) has completed his first year at Cambridge, where he is studying Spanish and Arabic, but he still has Johnny Depp on speed-dial. “At that age you don’t recognize how lucky you are,” Freddie recently told Hannah Nathanson of the London Evening Standard. While working with Johnny and Kate Winslet on Finding Neverland, “You’re not aware of their celebrity. I just saw them as friends.”

And did Johnny specifically request that Freddie be cast as Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton’s blockbuster Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which Johnny played Willy Wonka? “I’ve never been told that directly by anyone who worked on Charlie,” Freddie said, “but a lot of people seem to say how good it was to work with me. It was great to work with Johnny twice. He doesn’t see himself as being better than anybody else because he’s a better actor.”

Regarding the craft of acting, Freddie says, “Johnny didn’t give me particular words of advice [. . .]. There was never a moment when he sat me down and said, ‘Now, Freddie, this is what you’ve got to do.'” Instead, the young actor learned by osmosis. “It was more stuff I picked up. If you watch people, like your friends, they have a big impact on you.”

Although Freddie’s film career continues to flourish, and he has moved from child roles to young leading man without missing a beat (his latest film, The Art of Getting By, was just released in the UK), he hasn’t acted in any student theatre productions at Cambridge because he prefers to keep his work separate from his private life. “It’s nice that acting is not always present in my life,” he said — a refreshing change from those celebrities desperate to be in the spotlight every minute.

To see a recent photo of Freddie, CLICK HERE. You can read Hannah Nathanson’s profile of Freddie HERE.