The Untold Truth Of Morgan Freeman

Few actors exude the gravitas, the emotional depth, and the grandfatherly charisma of Morgan Freeman. It certainly didn't happen overnight, but the acclaimed actor has more than earned his reputation as one of the most respected and beloved talents in film and television. 

In spite of his fame, there's still a lot you may not know about the actor. Freeman's acting career spans over half a century, but it took decades of work in the entertainment industry for him to gain any measure of notoriety. Years before that happened, he was a fixture on children's television. And once he did win a degree of fame on the big screen, he nearly gave a hard pass to some of the roles he's most remembered for. 

Whether you know him best as the eloquent convict and narrator of "The Shawshank Redemption," the weary detective of "Se7en," or any of his other memorable roles, we're willing to bet you have a few things to learn about one of Hollywood's most treasured talents. Keep reading for the untold truth of Morgan Freeman.

It may be tough to imagine, but the same guy who partnered up with Clint Eastwood to assassinate two cowboys in "Unforgiven" was serenading children with songs a couple of decades earlier to help teach them lessons about reading and nutrition. Between 1971 and 1977, Freeman appeared daily on "The Electric Company." The show was something of a companion program to "Sesame Street," and it was meant for children too old for the more well-known program. Of the characters Freeman played, the most well-remembered is Easy Reader, a hipster who would get intensely excited at the prospect of reading anything, from a storefront sign to the ingredients on a soda bottle. He also played Mel Mounds the DJ and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire. 

Speaking to Rich Eisen in 2017, Freeman said he was initially "terrified" to get involved with "The Electric Company" because he worried that getting too heavily identified with children's television would exclude other opportunities. Freeman told Eisen, "If that show had kept going, I might still be there."

Thankfully, Freeman had nothing to worry about. Apparently, he wasn't being quite as identified with daytime television as he thought. In 2018 on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," Freeman related a story about going to an autograph signing at a shopping mall in Philadelphia during his "Electric Company" days. After at least an hour and a half of signing autographs and getting "writer's cramp," the event ended, and Freeman told Kimmel "all those little bits of paper that [he] was signing" had been left on the floor.

In a 1996 talk with Interview magazine, Morgan Freeman said it was in part his work on 1992's "Unforgiven" — during which, Freeman says, he'd learned his "best lesson in directing from Clint Eastwood" — that drove him to make his directorial debut with the critically hailed "Bopha!" the following year. 

Set in South Africa during the time of apartheid, "Bopha!" stars Danny Glover as Micah, a tough but fair policeman who's hoping his son, Zweli (Maynard Eziashi), will follow in his footsteps. While Micah believes his place on the police force is to the benefit of black South Africans, as the film progresses, he sees the way his white colleagues work, and he begins to question his beliefs. Things come to a head after his son makes contact with the activist Pule Ramba (Malick Bowens) who's arrested for speaking out in public against apartheid. Roger Ebert gave the film a thumbs up, hailing Glover's performance as "the portrait of a proud man who discovers his pride was entrusted to the wrong things."

While critics liked "Bopha!," the box office was less impressed, which may have something to do with why Freeman's only directing work since has been a few episodes of the political drama "Madam Secretary." It could also be because Freeman's experience on "Bopha!" was marred by interfering studio executives. Freeman told Interview that the only thing about directing "Bopha!" that wasn't rewarding was dealing with studio executives "making decisions thousands of miles away."

In 2009, Morgan Freeman starred in "Invictus" as Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid revolutionary who was released from prison after nearly three decades in 1990 and became the president of South Africa four years later. "Invictus" was a critical success, and Freeman earned an Oscar nomination for best actor, while co-star Matt Damon was nominated for best supporting actor.

Making "Invictus" was a journey Freeman started almost 15 years earlier. During a press conference for his 1995 autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom," Nelson Mandela said Morgan Freeman was his choice for lead actor for any potential adaptations. In 2009, Freeman told The Grio that was the moment he "warmly accepted" that he would eventually play Mandela. Freeman met with Mandela not long after and asked to have access to the South African president in order to give the role "as authentic a portrayal as possible," and Mandela agreed.

But getting a script wasn't easy. Freeman said he and his production partner Lori McCreary tried to adapt "Long Walk to Freedom," but that "it was impossible to present the complete story into the time frame of a feature film." The breakthrough came with John Carlin's 2006 book proposal for what would become "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation." The story about the South African rugby team the Springboks at the 1995 Rugby World Cup was, in Freeman's words, "the film to give the world insight into who Mandela is and how he operates."

Twice now — first in the 2003 comedy "Bruce Almighty" and then the 2007 sequel "Evan Almighty" — Morgan Freeman has literally played God. So, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that in his later years, Freeman has become very interested in some of the bigger questions about what the late author Douglas Adams would call life, the universe, and everything.

His fascination with those questions has led him to some interesting work. Questions about what and who might be found beyond our solar system helped lead him to the science docu-series "Through the Wormhole." In 2012, he told The Wrap that a lot of those questions came from a very particular kind of literature. "I used to read a lot of science fiction," Freeman said, "particularly that of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein and some other very interesting people, and they came up with thoughts about what's possible on Earth." Among other things, "Through the Wormhole" asks interesting and sometimes horrifying questions like whether or not there are races superior to our own in the universe and, if so, whether or not they might see us as food. 

Later, Freeman hosted National Geographic's "The Story of God with Morgan Freeman," exploring the faiths and beliefs of different cultures. While that experience exposed Freeman to new ideas about God, his thoughts on the subject didn't change. Speaking with The Wrap, Freeman expressed his belief that God is a human invention.  

Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood famously starred as aging gunslingers going on one last job in the practically flawless film "Unforgiven." Eastwood directed this 1992 Western, and ever since, the pair have expressed nothing but confidence and kinship toward one another. In 2004, Freeman starred in another Eastwood-directed feature — the heart-breaking sports drama "Million Dollar Baby" — and got his first Oscar win for his efforts. And when it came time for Freeman to realize his goal of playing Nelson Mandela in a movie with 2009's "Invictus," his choice for director was clear. He told The Seattle Times that when producer Lori McCleary asked him what director he wanted, Freeman answered, "I can only think of two. Clint Eastwood, and then there's Clint Eastwood," adding that, "He's the best director I know."

Freeman praised Eastwood's directing style in a number of interviews, usually pointing to his hands-off style in dealing with actors. He told The Seattle Times "[Eastwood] can stand back and let them do their thing, then take all the credit." Asked whether or not he was still interested in acting, Eastwood said he was content to stay behind the camera. It gave Freeman yet another opportunity to lay on the praise. "I'm perfectly willing and happy to have him direct from here out," Freeman said, adding, "I think he's hellbent on becoming another [Akira] Kurosawa, if he isn't already. I think he already is."

During the "Me Too" movement that rocked Hollywood in 2017 and 2018, in which inappropriate and criminal behaviors of powerful men were rooted out and made public, two women accused Morgan Freeman of unprofessional behavior of a physical nature. According to CNN, a production assistant who worked on Freeman's movie "Going in Style" in 2015 alleged that the actor touched and rubbed her and commented on her body and attire almost daily, and repeatedly tried to lift her skirt. The latter behavior reportedly stopped only when co-star Alan Arkin told Freeman to quit it. CNN also reported that a member of the production staff of the 2012 film "Now You See Me" alleged sexual harassment of herself and a female assistant.

Freeman apologized, according to Variety, to "anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected." However, since the CNN reporter who broke the story had experienced an uncomfortable moment with Freeman herself before her investigation, according to ABC 7 New York, Freeman responded to the allegations with a 10-page letter issued by his lawyer demanding a retraction and apology from CNN, calling the news outlet's reporting a "product of malicious intent, falsehoods, slight-of-hand [sic], an absence of editorial control, and journalistic malpractice." A year and a half after Freeman feuded with CNN, the cable network hired him to narrate a video for parent company WarnerMedia's investor presentation, a move that one CNN staffer called "disgusting."