The co-star Morgan Freeman accused of over-acting: “A hard-working kid, maybe too hard”
Given his six decades in the game, you’d be hard-pressed to find any kind of opportunity that Morgan Freeman hasn’t already taken.
And as one of the biggest names there is, he has also rubbed shoulders with most names you can think of, both major Hollywood legends and small, up-and-coming stars. Which means that, as far as bucket lists go, Freeman has pretty much already mastered his. In fact, likely in a move to poke fun at precisely that, the actor made a film about it once alongside another major film veteran, Jack Nicholson.
All things considered, therefore, Freeman has basically done it all. Well, except for work with Meryl Streep, but given his track record for making things happen, it’s likely that one day they will finally cross paths on set. Aside from that, Freeman is pretty much content with everything he’s done, even if sometimes he doesn’t always click with or understand those he’s working alongside.
In acting, and with an actor as prolific as Freeman, encountering people you don’t see eye-to-eye with is a given. And when you have films like 2008’s Wanted, which boast major industry names like Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy, there’s bound to be an interesting set of minds at play when it comes to bringing the stories and characters to life on screen.
McAvoy, in particular, Freeman remembers being “great” to work with – but that his acting ventured too far into overacting territory. As he recalled to Collider, “[He was] great. He’s a hard-working kid. Maybe too hard. By that I just mean he overacts, but this is an action movie, and he got a little ill. But we were in Prague so I don’t really know. I remember working in Bulgaria, I also had the same affliction that he came down with. It was like an ear affection that’s really debilitating. Had something to do with the water, I’m sure.”
His remarks might have seemed a little uncalled for, but it makes more sense when you remember that Freeman also has a justified dislike for theatre acting and how challenging it is compared to working on set. Of course, his hatred doesn’t stem solely from the style of acting, per se, just that being in that world left him with such a bitter taste in his mouth that it was hard to return to it.
In that sense, this aversion comes from finding more gratification in other roles and keeping as far as possible from the gruelling world of acting on stage. “It’s too much work,” he once said, which is a fair statement considering the amount he poured into theatre for years and years just for a shot in the movies. “Movies, you do a little work, make a lot of money and move on. I like that. And I think I’ve paid my dues,” he added.
It’s clear, therefore, that Freeman views theatre as an art form that prioritises the grind more than actual art, preferring to flex his craft in places where there’s a shift towards more authenticity and honesty, and a good amount of space and time actually to get it right. In fact, he even said that, on set, you can make mistakes and go again – on stage, you have no such luxury.
Thus, it’s no surprise that he found McAvoy’s Wanted performance jarring. As an actor with immense nuance and restraint himself, Freeman likely saw his co-star’s approach as unnecessarily tryhard and against everything he’d worked towards when pulling off the more intense scenes, which, to him, thrive on the more powerful subtleties.
