The humiliating rejection that kept Morgan Freeman’s ego in check: “I was the talk of the town”
It’s been a long time since Morgan Freeman has had to audition for anything, with his status as an Academy Award-winning actor and esteemed veteran ensuring that he’s been getting his pick of the scripts for decades.
Of course, that hasn’t always been the case, and it took him a long time to get to that position. Freeman’s career began on stage in the early 1960s, but he wouldn’t become a known quantity in Hollywood for another two decades. The work was solid if unspectacular throughout that time, even if he considered quitting once or twice when things looked particularly bleak.
Earning his first Academy Award nomination for playing the ruthless pimp Leo ‘Fast Black’ Smalls in 1987’s Street Smart was the catalyst, which became ironic in itself when Freeman refused to play a similar character ever again. Having originated the role on Broadway, he was the obvious choice to bring Hoke Colburn to the big screen in Driving Miss Daisy two years later, which got him on the ‘Best Actor’ shortlist.
Freeman’s credentials were never in question, and he’d spent years treading the boards in various productions, winning plenty of awards in the process. However, he discovered that Broadway recognition and acclaim weren’t worth a damn in the cutthroat world of cinema after he let his ego get the better of him.
“There have been a lot of frustrating moments,” Freeman reflected while looking back on his career with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation. “I interviewed for Miloš Forman for Ragtime. I read the book, and when I read the book, ‘Coalhouse Walker, that’s me!’ I got that going away. I had just gotten all kinds of accolades for the Broadway play that I had done. I was the talk of the town. ‘Surely, you’ve heard of me? Haven’t you?'”
Freeman was a fan of the source material; he identified with the part and was confident that his reputation would precede him in the audition. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and he quickly learned that carrying himself with an inflated sense of importance and assuming everybody knew who he was could send him crashing back down to earth in an instant.
“I didn’t get the job,” he lamented. “It is one of those moments in your life when you realise that, ‘OK, humility is still here with me; I’ve got to back away.” Howard Rollins ended up getting the nod after Freeman’s cocky attitude towards the auditioning process backfired, leaving him to jealously watch from afar as the actor didn’t only play the role he was convinced was his for the taking but notched an Oscar nod for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for their performance.
It would be another six years after the release of Ragtime that Freeman did catch his big break in movies, but at least he’d already learned the hard way that it wasn’t to be taken for granted.
