The career-long rule Morgan Freeman broke for one reason: “I’ll open the door if you wave money”
Most of Hollywood’s most illustrious names have made at least one movie solely for the money, but few have been as open and honest about it as Morgan Freeman, who’s taken on more obvious paycheque gigs than most of his peers.
The veteran’s transparency is refreshing in an industry where everyone pretends their latest work is the greatest thing they’ve ever been a part of, only to stick a knife in its back as soon as it leaves theatres. Sometimes, Freeman doesn’t even wait that long, telling everyone who’ll listen that he took a role for the riches on offer when he’s supposed to encourage people to see it.
With five Academy Award nominations and one win to his name for Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, Freeman has earned the right to take it easy on occasion. He’s been a working actor since the early 1960s, and he struggled to gain a foothold for more than two decades until Street Smart finally put him on the map when he was closing in on 50 years old.
From there, he began alternating between interesting character-driven parts and the frivolous flicks that would enhance his bank balance, which convinced him to break a rule he’d imposed on himself from the beginning. Dating back to his days as a struggling actor on stage and screen, Freeman was a man of principle who never returned to the well.
Even when he became a household name, the lure of sequels was something he always resisted. However, money has always talked louder than everything else in Tinseltown, and the gravitas merchant was finally convinced to listen almost four decades after he’d made his professional debut.
Freeman admitted that his intentional avoidance of sequels was a “philosophical aversion” that he’d maintained since day one, but when he was asked what convinced him to reprise the role of Alex Cross in 2001’s Along Came a Spider, the follow-up to Kiss the Girls that marked his first-ever foray into franchise territory, he didn’t even try and sugarcoat it.
“Money,” he told Hollywood. “Are you kidding? I’ll open the door if you wave money.” Plenty of stars in his position would spiral off on a tangent about the script’s strength, the lure of working with a talented director or an esteemed supporting cast, but not Freeman. Nope, he signed on for one reason and one reason only, and he didn’t care who knew it.
Maybe more actors should come clean as often as Freeman does because audiences are smart enough to spot a paycheque performance when they see one. Coincidentally, having made zero sequels in the 35 years before Along Came a Spider, the Oscar winner has made almost a dozen in the two decades since.
