Joe Freeman on Finally Getting to Share the Screen With Ben Barnes in ‘The Institute’ & ‘Shocking’ Ending Ahead

It took six episodes of grueling punishment and secretive planning, but Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman) finally escaped the title prison in Sunday’s (August 10) new episode of The Institute, titled “Run.” He also immediately found help in the form of Tim (Ben Barnes), who’d been lurking around the Institute after developing suspicions about what was really going on there and had grown used to weird theories after meeting Annie (Mary Walsh).

Despite everything Luke had been through, it didn’t take him long to trust Tim. That was due, in part, to Luke’s burgeoning ability to read minds and tell that Tim believed what he was saying about wanting to help. But it was also thanks to the fact that he didn’t have much of a choice. Maureen (Jane Luk) died by suicide instead of heading to the Red Steps to meet him after being summoned to see Stackhouse (Julian Richings). Journalist Kate (Jordan Alexander) proved to be a sleeper agent and tried to kill both Luke and Tim. Plus, thanks to a few timely news reports, the rest of the world thought he had something to do with his parents’ murder. Luke was thus alone in the world save for Tim.

Forming this instant connection with Barnes’ character was a cinch for Joe Freeman — and for good reason.

“Me and Ben spent a lot of time together prior to filming together. Whenever both of us weren’t working, we were doing something. We were going to get a meal or watching a film or going to get a coffee or whatever it was,” Freeman remembered in an interview with TV Insider. “When we initially had to start filming together, it was Jack [Bender, executive producer] telling us, ‘You’re too friendly.’ And that was the note we got because we just, we built up such a great friendship over the two and a half months prior to actually getting on screen together.”

The first meeting of Luke and Tim was a culmination of a building tradition of Luke using his mind to get a read on others. “I kind of like using expression rather than words, ’cause it gives it gives a whole different vibe to what you’re doing,” Freeman said of portraying the character’s telepathic tendencies with facial expressions, rather than and in addition to dialogue. “It was an interesting change, like when Luke’s with Tim and he says, ‘I think you’re telling the truth.’ … But I would say that, yeah, it was a change that I enjoyed making.”

MGM+

Freeman, who made his television debut in the series after years of appreciation for Stephen King, also spends quite a bit of time in the series sparring with Mary-Louise Parker as the villainous Institute leader Sigsby.

“I always wanted to try and impress her on set if we were doing a scene together. She’s such a great person and a better actor. I think she’s one of the finest we’ve got,” Freeman said of working with the Emmy winner. “Even though she’s a villain, [she can] really make the villain likable. I think Kathy Bates does that incredibly well in Misery.  She gives me that sort of vibe that Kathy Bates did.”

With Sigsby on his tail, desperate to return him to the Institute to save her own skin as well as the program, the final two episodes of The Institute will bring the two into an ultimate clash — with the help of another sleeper agent who just so happened to be hanging around the police station just as Luke and Tim showed up.

The logline for Episode 7, titled “Hide,” tells us, “Luke and Tim go on a desperate search for help as Sigsby uses all of her formidable assets in a last-ditch attempt to keep the Institute’s secrets.”

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Per Freeman, “It’s all gonna come to a gruesome conclusion. I say gruesome. It’s not really that gruesome a conclusion. It’s sort of just more shocking. It’s kind of a bittersweet moment for Luke when we reach the end for reasons that you’ll see when the finale airs.”

The Institute, Sundays, 9/8c, MGM+