Morgan Freeman’s least favourite kind of director: “I don’t suffer that very well”
Over the years, Morgan Freeman has worked with just about every great Hollywood director worth their salt. From Steven Spielberg to David Fincher and from Edward Zwick to Christopher Nolan, Freeman has plied his trade for some of the biggest names in the business.
Naturally, after building up so much experience, Freeman knows exactly what he likes and doesn’t like to see and hear from directors when they’re trying to work together. Thankfully, he’s also only too happy to spotlight the traits that his least favourite helmers have exhibited over the years.
Before getting into the things about some directors that get on Freeman’s nerves, it’s worth talking about who he has always said is the best in the business to work with. That honour goes to none other than Clint Eastwood, with whom Freeman has collaborated on three movies: Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Invictus. These collaborations have been very fruitful for Freeman, too, as he won the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Oscar for Million Dollar Baby and was nominated for ‘Best Actor’ for his stirring turn as Nelson Mandela in Invictus.
What is it about Eastwood’s approach to directing that Freeman gravitates toward, though? Well, it’s all about how Eastwood – one of the most legendary leading men in Hollywood history – gets out of the way of his casts. “He doesn’t fool around with actors,” Freeman once said. “He hires you to do the job. So, he ain’t doing it for you. He respects the actor.”
In 2007, Freeman elaborated on this quote. He mused, “If you give me the job and I think I can do it, let me do it. I’ve done best in situations where the director has said to me, ‘OK, that’s great. Now, just a little bit faster is all I need.'”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he said Eastwood is a master of this subtle, simple, and incisive style of note-giving. He doesn’t feel the need to be overbearing with his actors and instead will just nudge them in the right direction. “He doesn’t micro-manage the set,” Freeman explained. “Someone else does that. He just quietly moves through it all.”
OK, now we know the tactics that will put a director at the top of Freeman’s Christmas card list, but what can they do to ensure he never wants to work with them again? Well, it’s pretty simple: they just need to act like the exact opposite of Eastwood.
“When you’re one of these rising star directors or writers, there is a tendency to want to over-micro-manage the set and the actors,” Freeman explained. “I, for one, don’t suffer that very well.” To add extra emphasis, the iconic Se7en star grimaced, “I don’t like to be micro-managed. I don’t like it at all.”
To his credit, Freeman has never been one to name names when talking about directors he hated working with. Perhaps his mother raised him to think, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” However, there was one solitary time when he specifically pointed out a director who drew his ire: Abby Mann. While primarily known as a screenwriter, Mann made a move into directing in the late ’70s with the TV miniseries King. Then, in 1985, he wrote a drama about the Atlanta Child Murders that Freeman starred in, which is listed as being directed by John Erman.
However, in 2000, an unusually loose-lipped Freeman told the Dutch movie magazine Preview, “We had a great director, but then at some point or other, Abby Mann thought he could do a better job at directing. I think, at the first day, he learned that nobody paid much attention to him. He was one of those people who thinks directing is telling you how to do it.”
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