“I hated myself for not having the courage to just walk away”: Morgan Freeman on his draining role in ‘The Electric Company’
Few actors can boast a filmography on the same level as legendary performer Morgan Freeman. Over the course of his illustrious career, the Memphis-born actor has starred in such iconic works as The Shawshank Redemption, Seven, and Driving Miss Daisy. In order to get to those rewarding roles, however, Morgan had to crawl through a number of pipes that make Andy’s escape in Shawshank look like a relaxing day at the spa.
Everybody has to start somewhere, and back in the 1960s, Freeman got his start as a dancer at the 1964 World’s Fair. From there, the budding young actor made a number of minor appearances as an extra in The Pawnbroker or in the stage play The Royal Hunt of the Sun. These were the roles that made Freeman realise his life lay in the acting profession, but he was still in dire need of his elusive ‘big break’. In 1971, that break arrived when Freeman was cast in the PBS children’s television programme The Electric Company.
While perhaps not the profound, serious acting role that Freeman had hoped for, appearing on The Electric Company did give the actor a steady paycheque and a certain degree of notoriety with mainstream audiences in the United States. Broadly, the series aimed to educate children, with a particular focus on reading and grammar, through the medium of comedy sketches, songs, animated segments, and the occasional puppet show.
The majority of the show’s original cast, including Morgan Freeman, were relative unknowns when the show began, with most having only theatre credits to their name. However, season one of The Electric Company also featured disgraced comedy star Bill Cosby, who was relied on to provide many of the show’s skits and sketches. Freeman’s appearances also provided a highlight to the kid’s TV show, but the actor came to find that working on television is a very tiring task.
In total, Freeman lasted four years on The Electric Company, leaving the cast in 1975 after the end of season four. Since then, the actor has often spoken about how draining the project was. ”I’ve seen reruns of it once or twice. It’s exactly like time travel. It’s 30 years old now,” Freeman told Entertainment Weekly in 2001. “It was a very creative show, but man, it was a long gig. I was fried.”
“I hated myself for not having the courage to just walk away,” he continued. “But then it ended, and I had to find something else to do. Lucky for me.”
Freeman picked a particularly good time to exit the show, as The Electric Company was later cancelled in 1977. Although the show did leave Freeman utterly exhausted, it also provided a springboard for the actor to take on bigger projects. In fact, his first-ever credited film role occurred in Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow! the very same year that he joined the ranks of the children’s programme.
Following his departure from The Electric Company, Freeman appeared in a number of television films, including Attica and Hollow Image. It took a few more years, however, for Freeman to star as Leo ‘Fast Black’ Smalls in his breakout film role, Street Smart. It was this role that earned Freeman an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. As a result of that performance, the actor went on to star in a number of now-legendary works, eventually winning an Academy Award for his work on 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.
So, although The Electric Company might bring back memories of endless fatigue for Morgan Freeman, the role was essential in gaining future work for the actor. All in all, starring in a relatively popular nationwide children’s television show is a fairly commendable way of breaking into the acting profession, although the work might not stand up against Freeman’s various other roles throughout the years.
