(Credits: Far Out / Universal Pictures)
Sun 19 October 2025 18:40, UK
It took a while for him to get there, but when Morgan Freeman finally made his big screen breakthrough in his late 40s, he was more determined than ever to ensure he didn’t let it slip through his fingers.
So many actors have been given a chance to feature in a movie, a proverbial crack in the door letting in the bright lights of Hollywood, only to fumble, grab the handle and slam it shut on themselves. Freeman would do no such thing. He might not have been a film actor, but he had enough experience, in life and professionally, to know when an opportunity was worth grabbing.
Although he made his debut as a performer in a 1964 production of Hello, Dolly!, he made his first uncredited film appearance in the same year’s drama The Pawnbroker and spent six years and over 700 episodes as part of The Electric Company cast in his first-ever TV gig, it wouldn’t be until 1987 that Freeman gained a significant foothold in cinema.
Ironically, that came when he played a character diametrically opposed to the ones that made him a legend, with his vicious turn as a ruthless pimp in Street Smart netting him his first Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. The effect it had on his career was seismic, though, with Freeman soon established as one of the most in-demand talents in the business.
Within a decade of Street Smart, he’d earned two more Oscar nods for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption, lent support in Clint Eastwood’s classic Unforgiven, collaborated with Steven Spielberg on Amistad, and partnered up with Brad Pitt for David Fincher’s Seven, becoming one of the most consistent and reliable presences in Hollywood.
Morgan Freeman in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. (Credits: Far Out / Warner Bros)
Very rarely does Freeman find himself criticised for a subpar, lacklustre, or phoned-in performance, but he remains completely convinced that some of his worst acting came when channelling William Shakespeare. Like virtually every other stage performer ever, he’s well-acquainted with the work of ‘The Bard’; just don’t ask him to play the lead.
At various points in his career, he’s been a cast member in productions of Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and The Taming of the Shrew, but he despises Othello with a passion. Not only has he frequently denigrated of his own abilities at playing the lead, but he doesn’t care for the play in general.
Struggling to find work after The Electric Company had finished its run in 1977, Freeman returned to treading the boards and ended up headlining a 1983 run of Othello in Texas. “I started to think I should look for other options to pay the rent,” he admitted to The Times, explaining how he’d have to call up his landlord and let them know “nothing’s coming in”.
On paper, Othello came along at just the right time, but that’s not how Freeman saw it. “I was awful,” he conceded. “One of the worst things I’ve ever done, but it was work.” And making sure his resume was continually being filled would become a hallmark of Freeman’s career. It’s not easy to get roles, and Freeman has consistently delivered on them for decades, making his CV one of the fullest in the industry.
But it also means he is likely to have a flop or two, like Othello. That’s hardly the only time he’s lambasted his efforts as the character, even if he did come close to reprising it in 2001 when reports emerged he’d entered talks to do it all over again in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
It never ended up happening, but based on his own scathing self-assessment, it’s hardly far-fetched to suggest he got cold feet after his experience the first time around.
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