The son of banker father and producer mother, Freddie attends a Catholic boys' school in London. Although he has taken weekly drama classes for several years with his older brother Jack and younger sister Millie, his only experience before auditioning for The Mummy (1999) had been lip-synching the John Travolta role in a class production of Grease. Chose to audition for the part of Alex O'Connell in The Mummy Returns (2001) over auditioning for a part in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001).