The comedy legend Morgan Freeman called “a very, very funny man”
Comedy isn’t a genre that Morgan Freeman is closely associated with, even if the veteran has appeared in his fair share of movies over the years that try to tickle the funny bone in one way or another.
He was perfectly cast as God in Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty and relished the opportunity to utilise his signature gravitas as the man upstairs, but the same can’t be said of the dismal sequel Evan Almighty. Many of his action-orientated roles have required him to drop a one-liner or two, while he’s made a habit of co-starring with peers from his generation for a string of comic capers revolving around their advancing years.
From The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson to Last Vegas with Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline, and Robert De Niro by way of Going in Style with Michael Caine and Alan Arkin, Freeman has carved out a surprisingly niche side-line as a regular focal point of comedies predicated entirely on a bunch of old guys getting up to various shenanigans.
However, as it applies to his own inclinations, the Academy Award winner doesn’t appear to have much time for modernity. In an interview with The Guardian, Freeman admitted that he was “easily tickled” before listing a string of his favourite performers, the most recent of whom passed away in 2005.
“Charlie Chaplin. Jackie Gleason. Peter Sellers – Sellers was a very, very funny man,” he said. “And I remember the first time I saw Richard Pryor on Johnny Carson’s show. He wasn’t the Richard Pryor we all know and loved; he hadn’t found his voice yet, but once he found it, he was hilarious. That man could make me laugh until I wept.”
Sellers and Pryor were very different types of comedians, but they had an equal impact when it came to splitting Freeman’s sides. They each carved out successful cinema careers, having cut their teeth in other mediums, but their approaches to making people laugh were almost the complete opposite.
The former was famed for disappearing into characters, with Sellers’ versatility making him one of the most unique comedic talents of his or any other generation, famed for playing an incredibly wide range of roles in the same project that would each have their own distinctive set of traits, quirks, and foibles.
Pryor, meanwhile, first gained attention as an influential and era-defining stand-up comic before taking his talents to Hollywood, where his work alongside Gene Wilder led to some of the biggest hits of his career, and he was more than capable of striking out on his own and delivering the goods outside of the co-star he shared the screen with in Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You.
Their approaches occupied wildly differing ends of the comedic spectrum, but at the end of the day, Freeman found himself suitably humoured by both.
