How Morgan Freeman fell out of love with Hollywood: “Acting is losing its sting for me”
For several decades, Morgan Freeman would have been at the top of many cinephiles’ lists of favourite actors. The soothing-voiced star built a career on lending his signature gravitas to classic movies like Unforgiven, Seven, The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, and The Dark Knight trilogy. In the last decade or so, though, it can’t be denied that Freeman’s career has fallen off quite dramatically.
These days, movie fans are likelier to see Freeman’s face pop up on a poster for an action movie or thriller they’ve never heard of than hear about him rolling back the years on another classic. It would take a truly dedicated Freeman completist to even name the likes of Vanquish, Paradise Highway, The Minute You Wake Up Dead, Gunner, The Ritual Killer, and 57 Seconds, let alone actually watch them. In truth, in recent years, the best-known of his performances has been in Taylor Sheridan’s female-centric military show Special Ops: Lioness, but even that has a fairly niche audience.
So, what happened? Why did Freeman seemingly give up on making quality projects and fall so hard into the direct-to-streaming wasteland? Well, the answer may lie in something he said in 2017 while promoting Madam Secretary, the CBS political procedural he executive-produced and guest-starred in. Freeman took up directorial duties for the season four premiere as well, something he did on three of the show’s episodes, and these were his first forays into directing since 1993, when he helmed the little-known Apartheid drama Bopha!
While speaking to CBS, Freeman was asked why he moved behind the camera again after such a long gap. To the interviewer’s surprise, the iconic star mused, “Acting is losing its sting, its zip for me. Early on, when you’re getting the good character roles, you go see the character. Then, somewhere along the way, you become a star, and now it’s all about you.”
Needless to say, it’s highly unusual for such a beloved, acclaimed actor to admit to falling out of love with acting, while also railing against the creative handcuffs that come with being a Hollywood star. However, Freeman followed up this revelation by putting all his eggs in the directing basket, which was even more surprising. “I love directing, I really do,” he insisted, adding, “The whole concept of being in control of a presentation, particularly a movie or a show, where you’re dealing with actors and crew.”
Why has Morgan Freeman’s acting career faded in recent years?
With these quotes in mind, it would have made sense to see Freeman’s career shift into directing over the next few years. After all, there are lots of actors in Hollywood who balance their star vehicles with forays into directing and do it very successfully: Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Greta Gerwig, Olivia Wilde, and John Krasinski, to name a few recent examples. Bizarrely, though, he’s not directed anything since those Madam Secretary episodes, instead choosing to sleepwalk through dismally low-rent movies he wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole in his heyday.
In truth, perhaps his conscious uncoupling from the love of his craft is simply another manifestation of the conflicted relationship he’s always had with his profession. In the past, he has admitted to hating theatre performing, having a bad time making a couple of his classic films, and disliking several of his co-stars and directors.
Perhaps he has simply reached a stage where he would rather walk away entirely, but the business has other ideas. “There were times I feared I’d be an old man and never have got to do what I wanted,” he told The I Paper in 2017. “I just couldn’t get arrested when I was a younger man, and now I’ve reached retirement age, it seems Hollywood won’t let me retire.”
