Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Institute season 1!
Joe Freeman is honored to be part of the world of Stephen King and is ready to stay there after The Institute season 1. The MGM+ series serves as Freeman’s first major acting role, following in the footsteps of his father, Sherlock and The Hobbit alum Martin Freeman. He previously made his acting debut with a guest appearance on the BBC One soap opera Doctors.
Freeman stars in The Institute as Luke Ellis, a hyperintelligent teenager who suddenly finds himself kidnapped and taken to the titular facility, where those with telekinetic and telepathic abilities are studied. Put through rigorous tests and emotional abuse, Luke begins plotting an escape with the other teens and kids, all while having his powers improve.
As the season progressed, The Institute saw Luke escape on his own and meet up with Ben Barnes’ Tim, a new nightknocker in the nearby town who comes to recognize the dark secrets of the facility. With the walls closing in around them, and being unsure who to trust, they come up with a high-stakes plan to end it.
Ahead of the season 1 finale, ScreenRant interviewed Joe Freeman to discuss The Institute. The star opened up about getting to work on a King adaptation, the reception to the show, and what other adaptations of the author’s work he’d like to be part of. He also broke down the big deaths in the season 1 finale and his thoughts on the show’s future.
Freeman Has Some Interesting Ideas For Other Stephen King Adaptations
Since making its mid-July debut, The Institute has enjoyed a solid reception from critics and audiences and has been performing well on streaming, holding the No. 1 spot on MGM+ since its debut. For Freeman, he admits “I don’t really follow that side” of a project, not really engaging with the reviews, but instead promoting the show on his social media.
That being said, the star does acknowledge that, in speaking with people who have enjoyed it, the central concept they appreciate is “how these kids can completely flip something on its head” and properly rebel against the “oppressive adults“. “I think that that’s certainly what I enjoy about the show the most, and I think that’s the vibe I’m sort of getting, is that people like that,” Freeman shared.
Despite the fun had in production, one unique nature of The Institute that proved especially challenging for Freeman were the scenes involving the deprivation tank. Though describing it as “really interesting“, the star also found it to be an intense element as he couldn’t “act like I can’t breathe” while also “really running around this tank saying lines“.
“So I had to try and actually do the holding of the breath thing and not being able to breathe,” Freeman explained. “It’s a weird balance to strike with that scene, and also all of those lines are ADR, because you can’t hear anything in that tank. The lines were not really picked up in there. It was a weird one. It was a weird one.“
Now that he’s dipped his toes into the world of King adaptations, he has some “really fun” ideas for tackling other adaptations of the author’s bibliography. For starters, even though he knows “it was done recently“, Freeman would love to star in IT, citing the “tight-knit group” at the heart as much as “playing murder in the dark with this massive, giant freak“.
Another work that Freeman would like to bring his own take on is that of Misery. Though, in a more unique twist on King’s 1987 novel and subsequent movie, he “would love to play Kathy Bates’ character“, Annie Wilkes. While acknowledging he’d also “love to play” James Caan’s character of Paul Sheldon, he feels Wilkes is “one of the greatest villains ever“.
The other major novella Freeman would like to get his hands on is 1982’s The Body, which became the Oscar-nominated classic Stand by Me. Expressing an interest in seeing a “modern-day” version of the story, he admits it “would be a risky idea“, as he called the movie version “so perfect“, but also feels like now’s the perfect time to try.
There Were 2 Actors Freeman Was “Most Excited” To Partner Up With
While the show sees Luke bonding and spending plenty of time with the other young prisoners in the facility, one of The Institute‘s more intriguing dynamics is that of him and Ms. Sigsby, played by Emmy winner Mary-Louise Parker. The young protagonist and main antagonist have numerous matter-of-fact conversations throughout the season, thanks in large part to Luke’s keen intellect.
Freeman found himself “most excited” to film his sequences with Parker whenever he saw them on the call sheet, citing there being an energy to “being able to be opposite someone of that caliber of actor“. “She’s such a quiet-but-deadly force, and she’s got this thing that I think Kathy Bates has in Misery,” Freeman expressed. “That Stephen King villain thing of, ‘Yeah, you’re so likable, and I’m supposed to hate you.’“
I just wanted to try and hold my own against her in sort of a game of tennis or chess befitting to The Institute.
Another actor Freeman was thrilled to work with was Ben Barnes, given they were the only “British-born lads” in the Institute‘s cast. As such, when it came time for them to work together in the season’s later episodes, they both felt it was “about time“, but also felt their early scenes “came at the perfect time” for Luke as he processes having finally escaped the facility.
“He’s at the lowest point that he’s been at, maybe, in the show,” Freeman said. “I think also, with Tim, he’s looking for that kind of redemption, and believing that he can help somebody, because obviously he kills that kid in the shopping mall incident, and I think now he just wants to be able to believe he can do a good thing. I think Luke is the perfect example of that.“
Freeman Has Thoughts On Where The Institute Season 2 Should Go After The Season 1 Ending
Diving into some of the bigger spoilers of the season’s later episodes, Freeman first dove into the heated confrontation in The Institute season 1 episode 7 between Tim, Luke and Ms. Sigsby, in which they learn the truth behind the facility. Calling it “my favorite scene of the show“, and praising everyone’s “brilliant” acting in the scene, Freeman admits he himself was “very on the fence” about the truth.
“It’s a big dilemma,” Freeman denoted. “‘Do you risk the Earth for a few kids?’ It’s a very tough question, because then all the kids die. ‘So, would you rather one or all?’ It’s a very hard thing, and that’s why I think Luke is a realist, and he would have, in that moment, been like, ‘Well, s–t.’ [Laughs]“
When asked how he would react if presented with the same question, the star feels “it would be the exact same thing“. Admitting it’s “hard to see past” the “very bad thing” the Institute is doing to kids, Freeman feels there’s still no justifying the facility’s actions, and expressed his thought that those who work for them “have to have a very don’t-care attitude“.
“Like Sigsby says, ‘She doesn’t have time to have a clear conscience or something.’,” Freeman shared. “She says something like that, and it’s completely true, you can’t be caring about a grieving family when you’ve got the world to save. Otherwise, you’re not going to save the world.“
Turning the conversation to the finale, which he describes as being “bittersweet“, Freeman shared his thoughts on The Institute‘s ending, where Luke and the other teens lift the entire facility into the air and bring it down, killing a good number of main characters. For Luke, one of the few survivors, it was an action that “has to be done“, even though “a bad thing is going to happen“.
“‘But a very good thing is going to happen on the back of it. Yeah, we’re going to lose some kids, and it’s exactly what Sigsby said’,” Freeman explained. “That thing, like, ‘What are you going to do to save yourself or the world?’ We saved ourselves, and we did lose some people in the process.“
As for Freeman himself, he described filming the scene as a “very weird thing” as he had to “visualize a building in the air“, which “was not” what they were actually seeing. The filming involved director Jack Bender shouting from a filming tent “it’s going, it’s going, it’s going, it’s going“, building up to “and it falls“.
“It was this rundown place up in the Nova Scotia hills,” Freeman described. “That’s all I’m getting, so it’s a weird thing. But I think with your eyes closed, it’s pretty easy to do anything apart from run with scissors or something. [Chuckles]“
With the season ending on the note of Ms. Sigsby having survived and hitchhiking to an unknown place, there are a number of things The Institute season 2 could do with Luke, be they hunt her down or see him try to leave everything behind. In Freeman’s mind, he sees Luke “going off and trying to live a normal life“.
I’d want to see something where he goes and confronts his past. I wanted to see how Nicky grew up, and where he, Kalisha and George are, as well. It’s a whole world of ideas.
Acknowledging that Luke “doesn’t know that Sigsby’s alive“, the star goes on to feel that the “realest thing” his character can do is to “try and move on“. This even leans into his feelings about where The Institute should go in the future, with our interview having come prior to the confirmation MGM+ was moving forward with season 2.
“I was talking to Ben about it, and the idea that I really liked and fixated on was that — and it puts me out of work if there is touch with a season 2 — we go completely to another place, like Japan, or anywhere in the world, and it’s from the point of view of that place,” Freeman explained. “None of the original book characters are in it, and it’s just a completely different story, in a different language, done by different people.“
However, Freeman confirmed that talks were happening for season 2 during production of season 1, which would continue Luke and the other survivors’ stories. Pointing out the challenge of expanding the story from the book, as “Stephen King tells these great one-off stories“, Freeman said the one thing he “wouldn’t be crazy about” is if the series became like the X-Men.
“Going to go from Institute to Institute, kids breaking in and freeing everybody, I don’t want it to turn into that,” Freeman expressed. “I want to learn more about precognition, and what the PC track is, and I want to see more backstories, because we know about Luke’s backstory. We know vaguely about Ben’s backstory, but we don’t know about that incident at the mall.“
Freeman Has A Couple Of Thoughts On Potential Marvel Roles
Building off of his mention of the X-Men, The Institute has found itself compared by some to both the Marvel superhero team and Netflix’s Stranger Things. The star himself has a unique connection with the former comic book brand, as his father, Martin Freeman, plays CIA Operative Everett K. Ross in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having starred in Captain America: Civil War, both Black Panther movies and Secret Invasion.
In looking at potentially making his own Marvel debut, including potentially the in-development X-Men reboot, Freeman had a few interesting thoughts on who he’d like to play. “I love, in one of the first Hugh Jackman ones, Ryan Reynolds as the crazy Deadpool with no mouth,” Freeman explained. “I think it would either be Magneto or Quicksilver. Yeah, I think I’d do that.“
Check out our previous Institute interviews with:
All eight episodes of The Institute are available to stream on MGM+!
