(Credits: Alamy)
Fri 12 September 2025 20:45, UK
Creamy-voiced movie star Morgan Freeman may not be a fan of the Oscars, once saying that he’d be fine with the golden statues being scrapped altogether, but there’s one bit of bling that he’s perfectly fine with, and that’s his earrings.
Quite famous for rocking a pair of gold hoops on his lugholes, he wears them these days as a nod to an old seafaring tradition, which went along the lines of making sure that a sailor could afford a proper coffin if he died while away from home and without his savings.
Not that Freeman is likely not to be able to afford that, given he earns something like $5-10million per movie, and has done so since he really cemented his fame in the mighty prisonbreak drama The Shawshank Redemption, the Stephen King adaptation that regularly goes down as one of, if not the highest-rated film in history.
Now 88 years young, Freeman has been acting since the mid-1960s, and was actually twice Oscar-nominated many years before his role as Red alongside Tim Robbins, for 1987’s Street Smart and Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. The latter won the Oscar for ‘Best Picture’ the following year, and Freeman excelled in his performance as Jessica Tandy’s chauffeur.
After Shawshank, the actor followed up in the most spectacular way possible by starring in another of the greatest films ever made; David Fincher’s bloody serial killer smash Seven with Brad Pitt before he made use of his sizable reputation in order to land parts in two blockbusters, namely Steven Spieberg’s slave ship epic Amistad, the worryingly prescient virus thriller Outbreak and the sci-fi disaster movie Deep Impact.
Although the latter suffered from being released alongside the markedly better Armageddon, Freeman remained one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, especially thanks to that distinctive voice of his, which was so relaxing and in demand that it made him the de facto voiceover artist in Hollywood for many years to come, especially where roaming penguins were concerned.
Freeman showed he could do comedy as well as tragedy in his next big hit, which was Bruce Almighty alongside Jim Carrey, before he returned to serious stuff in ultra-successful fashion, landing himself an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ thanks to his turn in Clint Eastwood’s boxing drama Million Dollar Baby.
He underlined that success with more superb work as Lucius Fox in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy and has worked consistently ever since, with some genuine highlights across genres, including Invictus, Tom Cruise’s Oblivion, and the magic-based franchise Now You See Me with the likes of Jesse Eisenberg.
As for those earrings and why he first started wearing them? Well, Freeman explains: “When I was a kid, I saw a pirate movie with Burt Lancaster [probably 1952’s The Crimson Pirate], who wore an earring. I thought that was sexy.” Crimson Pirate was an adventure romp set in the 18th century starring Lancaster as pirate captain Vallo, and is probably most popular for inspiring first the Disneyland ride The Pirates of the Caribbean, which in turn was the basis for the billion-grossing movie franchise starring Johnny Depp as a rum-admiring pirate and Kira Knightley’s too-keen Elizabeth Swann.
Freeman, meanwhile, isn’t about to rest his sea legs and is currently in production for a third instalment in the Now You See Me franchise, in addition to taking the lead in a new movie called Hate to See You Go about an ageing blues musician struggling to give up a life on the road.
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