“I’ve only been scared once”: the worst role of Morgan Freeman’s career left him terrified
As an actor who’s always exuded a sense of calm, Morgan Freeman has never been considered prone to nervousness, trepidation, or outright fear. However, it has happened, but only once during a storied career that began over 60 years ago.
It makes even more sense knowing that it was the worst performance he’s ever given, which were his words. As an Academy Award-winning legend who’s been in some of the most beloved movies ever made, Freeman’s natural gravitas and authoritative disposition have made him one of the most reliable veterans in the business.
Even when he’s starring in terrible films, which has become increasingly frequent in recent years, he can’t often be accused of phoning it in. Then again, when Freeman makes his semi-regular detours into straight-to-video tedium, he isn’t asked to do much more than swing by and rattle off some exposition before picking up his paycheque and heading home. Even then, his voice is so damned luxuriously syrupy that it’s still poetic.
Self-confidence is key for any performer to succeed, and it’s something Freeman has always possessed in spades. There are exceptions to the rule, though, and for The Shawshank Redemption star, tackling one of William Shakespeare’s most formidable texts during his early days treading the boards was a bridge too far. In the early 1980s, before Street Smart made him a movie star but more than two decades into his life as a working actor, Freeman played the title role in a production of Othello.
Looking back, he’s been open to denigrating his own performance, going so far as to call it not only the least favourite role he’s ever played but one of the worst things he’s ever done on stage and screen. It was an honest assessment, but an understandable one after Freeman confessed that he was shitting himself the entire time.
“I’ve only been scared once,” he told Hey U Guys of his most daunting work as a thespian. “I was trying to do something I was really ill-equipped to do, and I haven’t met the actor yet who was equipped.” The terrifying turn was none other than Othello, but Freeman doesn’t think he’s alone in struggling with the play.
“I saw Sir Laurence Olivier play Othello, and he’s awesome,” Freeman offered despite the British heavyweight adopting blackface. “But I’ve never seen anyone else do it and pull it off.” Raul Julia was another who earned pass marks for embodying the character, but those are the only pair of actors the regular Clint Eastwood collaborator has ever seen do justice to the play.
Maybe he was being too harsh on himself, or maybe he really was awful as Othello, but it nonetheless endures as a low point for Freeman on two fronts after he let his fear feed into his performance and bombed in front of the audience, or at least that’s the way he tells it.
