Morgan Freeman, the Academy Award-winning Hollywood icon known for movies like Se7en, The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, has addressed his plans to retire from acting. In recent years, the actor has taken a slight step back from the Hollywood spotlight, appearing mostly in lesser-known films. But does that mean that he’s heading towards retirement?
Freeman recently talked to The Guardian in a retrospective interview. The conversation takes him through his entire career, focusing on the films that have made him such an icon in Hollywood, and the perfect voice for documentary narration. During the discussion, Freeman comments on the rise of AI, and confirms he’s fully against it — for obvious reasons: “I’m like any other actor: don’t mimic me with falseness. I don’t appreciate it and I get paid for doing stuff like that, so if you’re going to do it without me, you’re robbing me…My lawyers have been very, very busy.”
The actor, who will soon return to franchise-filmmaking in the upcoming Now You See Me sequel, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, reprising his role as Thaddeus Bradley, also addressed any potential retirement plans. Even though, aged 88, he’s now older than many of his peers, Freeman intends to continue acting as long as interesting, good-paying jobs keep coming:
“Sometimes the idea of retirement would float past me but, as soon as my agent says there’s a job or somebody wants you, or they’ve made an offer, the whole thing just boils back into where it was yesterday: how much you’re going to pay, where we’re going to be?
The appetite is still there. I will concede that it’s dimmed a little. But not enough to make a serious difference.”
Freeman Talks About His Role in One of the Best Movies Ever Made
With a career spanning four decades, and credits across all acting mediums, Freeman has built a legacy in the vein of Hollywood’s most important performers. There’s no question that, even though he’s not been entirely free of controversy over the years, he’s one of the most beloved actors working today.
When asked if there’s one project that people always mention when approaching him, Freeman says, “Heavens, yes. It’s like I was not ever in anything else.” The actor is, of course, referring to the Stephen King adaptation The Shawshank Redemption, which saw him play Red, the prison’s main smuggler and witness to Andy Dufresne’s extraordinary journey. Although it’s now considered one of the best movies ever made, the 1994 drama was a box office failure upon release, something Freeman associates with the complexity of its title:
“I always say that it’s a movie about a love affair between two men, in that they had their ups and downs and ins and outs. And it’s something about the fact that they were in prison and experiencing this hope, redemption, resilience. Somehow, that movie has grabbed the consciences of people all over the place, everywhere.
“When the movie first came out, it didn’t do well at all. You know why? ‘Shawshank Redemption’ – [people] couldn’t remember that. ‘Saw this great movie. It was the Shank … Shim … Shanks … something like that.’ If you don’t get word of mouth, that’s it, you’re dead in the water. It’s as simple as that.”
- Release Date
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September 23, 1994
- Runtime
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142 minutes
- Producers
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Liz Glotzer
