“Somebody’s going to come along”: Morgan Freeman manifested his dream role
Here’s an interesting fact for you, although the level of interest will probably be proportional to how old you are, but when Morgan Freeman appeared in Frank Darabont’s classic Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption back in 1994 as the tired-looking prisoner Red, he was the same age as Jennifer Lopez is now, which is 56.
Now, I’m not debating who looked or looks better on it, but one of them obviously has had a tougher paper round, and it’s not J-Lo. But my point is that Freeman is one of those actors who, to all intents and purposes, has always been old, and even when he wasn’t that old, he just gave off the air of someone who had been around for a long time.
Of course that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all, especially when you think about all the authoritative, ‘guy who has seen and done it all’ roles Freeman has excelled in over the years, most notably in classics like David Fincher’s amazing thriller Seven from 1995 or 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy, which earned him an Oscar nomination and in which, lest we forget, he was actually only 50.
Freeman, though, was not always an old man, because he isn’t capable of defying medical science, and as a young actor, he found success on Broadway in the 1960s and ’70s, before moving into TV and film. It was on the stage where he was most acclaimed back then, however, earning a Tony nomination for his work on a play called Zeke, which led to a profile in The New Yorker, where he revealed his hopes of being recognised on the big screen and his love of film.
Freeman, who had just turned 40 at that point, said, “I’m totally interested in the movies, and have been since I was a kid. I went to the movies every day when I was growing up, and my mother told me over and over, ‘One of these days, I’m taking you to Hollywood’. I want to do movies that it’s likely no one will ever do…I wanted to be a cowboy when I was little, and I still do, and someday somebody’s going to come along and say, ‘Here’s your western, Morgan. Do it’.”
Well, in the end, he had to wait some 14 years before the chance to do that western came along, but when it did, he could hardly have chosen a better one. Directed by Clint Eastwood, 1992’s Unforgiven starred Gene Hackman among a frightening array of talent, including legendary British actor Richard Harris, Freeman and Eastwood himself, telling the story of Eastwood’s ageing killer who takes on one more job for money after long retiring to a quiet life of farming.
The film was a massive critical and commercial success, making more than ten times its budget at the box office and collecting seven Oscar nominations, winning Eastwood a ‘Best Director’ accolade, and two years later, Freeman made The Shawshank Redemption, winning his third Oscar shoutout to become one of the most in-demand and highest-paid actors in Hollywood.
A year after followed Seven, and then came Freeman’s Oscar win exactly ten years later, thanks to teaming up with Eastwood once more for the acclaimed boxing movie Million Dollar Baby, which saw him play a gym assistant to Eastwood alongside an incredible performance from Hilary Swank.
After making another instalment of his magician franchise, Now You See Me, last year, he is now working on a film called Hate to See You Go about an old blues musician heading out on tour one final time, living out his dream, making many, many movies.
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