NOTE: Interview conducted just hours before the Season 4 finale of “Bates Motel.”
WASHINGTON — It was the most shocking twist in movie history: the revelation of Norman Bates as the ultimate “mama’s boy” in Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic “Psycho” (1960).
Over the past four years, a new generation has discovered the twisted glory of Norman’s origin story in A&E’s acclaimed TV series “Bates Motel,” which delivered a powerful Season 4 finale on Monday.
“It’s sort of incredible and weird and exactly what ‘Bates Motel’ has always been about,” Freddie Highmore told WTOP about his role as Norman. “In terms of last week’s episode and this [finale], if there’s only two episodes of ‘Bates’ that people ever end up seeing, these are the ones to watch.”
Without spoiling anything for those who haven’t seen it, let’s just say that the final episode picks up right where the previous episode (“Forever”) left off, answering a most suspenseful cliffhanger.
“For those who have seen it, everyone knows exactly what particular event I’m talking about,” Highmore said. “Everything he’s been doing, especially what he did at the end of Episode 9, was an act of love. Of course he was deluded, I think we know that now, but he wasn’t doing it out of jealousy, out of hatred, he was doing it because he really loved his mother and wants to be with her forever.”
The episode title, “Norman,” suggests the transformation is now complete, setting up Season 5 to be a thrilling final race to that fateful night when Marion Crane entered that shower in Cabin No. 1.
“We’re going to end after Season 5,” Highmore confirmed to WTOP.
In fact, creators Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin and Anthony Cipriano have always planned to end after Season 5. Like “The Wire” (2002), this allows them to tell a self-contained arc with a beginning, middle and end, while avoiding the temptation of playing the ratings game and jumping the shark.
“They’ve been bold in knowing exactly how they want to bring things to a close and how long that will take, meticulous in the planning of all that,” Highmore said. “What’s been great about the way they’ve led the writing team this year is allowing certain scenes to run a little longer than usual on television.”
These patient scenes allow us to pick up on subtle facial expressions that say so much.
“You have this five or six minute scene with Norman and Dr. Edwards in therapy when he becomes Norma early on in the season,” he said. “There’s such a tendency to condense now and to cut stuff down for time, and there isn’t enough time for the nuance, for the real character stuff, for those little beats that are much more important than the lines. I think they’ve been brilliant at fighting for those.”
Highmore himself wrote the recent episode “Unfaithful,” introducing Norman’s infamous peephole.
“I have a particular fondness for the peephole because it was the episode that I was fortunate enough to write this season of ‘Bates,'” Highmore said. “It just really felt like we were moving toward that Norman from ‘Psycho’ that we knew always was going to come. … We’re really piecing together now how Norman became psycho, how he ended up being that Norman Bates that we know so well.”
The peephole and taxidermy are just some of the juicy callbacks to Hitchcock, who brilliantly handled his legendary twist. Behind the scenes, Hitch bought up as many copies of Robert Bloch’s source novel as he could find, while holding fake casting sessions for the role of Mrs. Bates and ordering movie theatres to lock their doors after the movie started to ensure maximum shock for audiences.
Even upon repeat watches, audiences will notice Hitchcock brilliantly foreshadowing the twist with opening credits that “split,” stuffed birds in the background and double images in window reflections.
But all of it would have been for naught without the career performance of Anthony Perkins.
“[I admire] the nuances to his performance … and the normality behind this guy who is running a motel but wasn’t overtly a serial killer and was maybe just a little bit odd,” Highmore said. “Someone who … was very likable and you could get on his side. That’s what we’ve tried to replicate.”
While replicating the genius of “Psycho,” “Bates Motel” also has more time to explore its characters.
“We obviously had so much more time than they ever did to develop the character of Norman Bates,” Highmore said. “This season, we’ve tried to maintain his likability, keep people’s sympathy for him, while at the same time having him become a little more manipulative, a little more Machiavellian.”
With creepy voyeurism and hints of incest, this isn’t a role where Method acting would be ethical. So how does Highmore get himself into that mindset? The trick is to ignore that it’s abnormal at all.
“Certain things are so bizarre in the show and certain stuff is so odd, but I think for the characters involved in it, there’s a sense of normality,” he said. “He doesn’t think he’s crazy. He thinks that often he’s completely sane and that he’s making right choices that are well thought out. So it’s easy to get on board with that. I guess we don’t become aware of the madness that is produced by this.”
It helps to be working alongside a powerhouse like Vera Farmiga, who earned an Emmy nomination as Norman’s controlling mother Norma Bates in 2013. Her career has been a joy to watch, including an Oscar nomination screwing over George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (2009). But watching “Bates Motel,” one gets the feeling this just might be the career role for which she is most remembered.
“Vera deserves all the accolades,” Highmore said. “She’s been absolutely brilliant. She sort of couples this incredibly nuanced performance, which can change with a slight look or a blink or a smile, with this sort of larger-than-life sense of Norma being huge at times and overbearing and loving and wild. It’s that sort of mixture of the wildness and the calmness that makes her so intriguing as a character.”
Farmiga’s presence is what makes the end of Season 4 so powerful. Anyone who’s seen “Psycho” knows Norma’s ultimate fate in Hitchcock’s basement. But the thrill of these past four seasons of “Bates Motel” has been watching how the show’s creators are choosing to get us to that point.
This is particularly true at the end of Season 4, which sends Norman into that iconic basement.
“Things that go on in Norman’s basement … it’s one of my favorite bits,” Highmore said. “Norman will go down to the basement and he will return with something, and whatever that is, is exciting to me.”
If you missed watching the finale live on A&E, you can stream it online at the network’s website. By the end of the episode, you will realize that nothing will come between this unique mother and son.
“A boy’s best friend is his mother,” Highmore joked, quoting Perkins’ legendary line, only doing so with his native London dialect. “It doesn’t work quite as well in the British accent, does it?”
Rest easy, Freddie. Your American accent is entirely authentic in the show, though it’s a tad creepy how you’ve subconsciously adopted Mrs. Bates into your speech pattern during press interviews.
Signing off with WTOP, Highmore offered a two-word farewell eerily similar to Mrs. Bates’ reply when a prison guard brings her a blanket at the end of “Psycho” — “Thank you.”
Looks like the transformation is complete.
Listen below for the full chat with Freddie Highmore. NOTE: Interview conducted Monday before the finale:
