Morgan Freeman names the best directors he ever worked with: “These two I really relish”
Even though he’s become one of Hollywood’s most frank and outspoken figures when admitting the sheer volume of roles he’d played exclusively for the money, Morgan Freeman didn’t become a legend by working as a mercenary drawn only to the financial incentives on offer.
That’s definitely been a key part of his approach, though, and he’s got no shame in letting it be known. If anything, it’s refreshing to hear one of the industry’s most storied veterans holding his hands up and confessing that the only reason he’s boarded a film is because it’ll make him even richer, but that’s never been his biggest driving force.
For proof, look no further than the names he’s collaborated with. Nobody gets to work with Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Paul Newman, Brian De Palma, David Fincher, Neil LaBute, and Lasse Hallström, to name just a few, if the only thing motivating them is the number of zeroes on their paycheque.
There have been a few of those, though, and Freeman has bucked the trend set by many of his contemporaries by occasionally letting everyone know he’s only there for the money before the project in question has even been released, which isn’t great for marketing purposes but does at least deserve points for honesty.
One of the most obvious names that wasn’t mentioned above is Clint Eastwood, a filmmaker Freeman holds a deep respect for. They’ve made Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Invictus together, all of which earned a rapturous response from critics and made themselves fixtures of awards season, so it’s stating the obvious to say the four-time Academy Award winner is one of his favourite people to work with.
The second came at a fortuitous time for Freeman because it also gave him the opportunity to share the screen with someone he’d spent decades admiring from afar. It’s difficult to imagine cinema’s pre-eminent exposition machine getting starstruck, but Jack Nicholson tends to have that effect on people, whether they’re relative newcomers or part of Tinseltown’s furniture.
2007’s The Bucket List spent a surprisingly long time in development hell for a widely beloved dramedy that even contributed to the cultural lexicon by popularising the titular term, and if Nicholson wasn’t enough to make it a memorable experience, then Rob Reiner’s presence behind the camera doubled down.
“Rob’s a teddy bear,” Freeman told Travelling Boy. “He’s delicious. He’s a really good director, and I especially enjoy working with him. He’s very, very quick, which I really, really like. The other director I hold in equal esteem is Clint Eastwood. Now, I have worked with a lot of terrific directors, and I don’t mean to be putting any of them below their own station, but these two, I really relish working with them.”
As far as Freeman is concerned, there’s Reiner and Eastwood, and then there’s everybody else.
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