The one career dream Morgan Freeman has left to achieve: “It would be a feather in the ol’ cap”
The older anyone gets, the less likely they become to dwell on regrets, since there’s really no point in looking backwards and wishing on what might have been. However, that doesn’t mean people can’t have them, and there’s still one goal Morgan Freeman has left to achieve in his career.
Not to sound too morbid, but if he wants it to happen, somebody better get a move on. The legendary actor will turn 90 years old in June 2027, and while age evidently hasn’t slowed him down since he’s appeared in six movies and a TV show since the beginning of 2023, time is nonetheless running out.
Among actors, Freeman seems especially unlikely to lament the ones that got away. After all, he’s been admitting for decades that money is his main motivating factor in signing up for a role, and since he’s made an awful lot of that, he should be thrilled with how things have gone. On the other hand, there are one or two things he might have done differently.
He’d always dreamed of playing the legendary lawman, Bass Reeves, onscreen, but it didn’t happen. Despite having some negative experiences performing the works of William Shakespeare, he still fancied a crack at King Lear. He’s worked with some of the greatest actors around, but he’s never had the chance to spar onscreen with Meryl Streep, which is another source of frustration.
That’s not a huge list of ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’ moments for someone who’s been acting since the early 1960s, and being an Academy Award-winning icon with one of the most distinctive and instantly recognisable voices in cinema history helped soften the blow, not to mention the raft of classic films that audiences will continue to rewatch and discover for generations to come.
One thing he’s never done, which is odd when so many actors have, is host Saturday Night Live. He’s been impersonated several times on the show, but his only appearance to date came when he made a cameo as himself during a sketch that aired on the October 2nd, 2010 episode.
The prospect of Morgan Freeman reciting an opening monologue in those dulcet tones of his should have been an obvious home run for SNL to hit, and he’s not averse to poking fun at himself, either, but for whatever reason, Lorne Michaels and the rest of the head honchos have never extended him an invitation to serve as the guest host.
When Woody Harrelson, his three-time co-star in the Now You See Me franchise and a member of the prestigious ‘Five-Timers Club’ himself, told USA Today that he’d love to see the sonorous star front an episode of SNL, Freeman was in full agreement. “I wouldn’t mind hosting it all,” he said. “As a matter of fact, it would be a feather in the ol’ cap.”
Regrettably, he also acknowledged that if he hasn’t been asked by now, it looks as if it isn’t “in the works.” If he was, though, the Shawshank Redemption stalwart would set a unique piece of SNL history. Betty White was 88 years and three months when she hosted in May 2010, making her the oldest-ever host. Freeman is longer in the tooth than she was when she took the stage, so if he achieves the dream, he’ll be a record-breaker.
