Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman, (born June 1, 1937, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.), American actor whose emotional depth and versatility made him one of the most-respected performers of his generation. Over a career that included numerous memorable performances on stage, screen, and television, Freeman was one of the few African American actors who consistently received roles that were not specifically written for black actors.
As a young man, Freeman had aspirations of being a fighter pilot; however, a stint in the air force (1955–59) proved disappointing, and he turned his attention to acting. He made his Broadway debut in an all-black production of Hello Dolly! in 1967. In the 1970s he continued to work on the stage and also appeared on the educational children’s television show The Electric Company as the character Easy Reader. Freeman’s performance in the film Brubaker (1980) and on the soap opera Another World (1982–84), along with several enthusiastic reviews for his theatrical work in the early 1980s, led to more challenging film roles. His portrayal of a dangerous hustler in Street Smart (1987) earned Freeman his first Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actor. He was later nominated for a best-actor Oscar for his work in Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which he re-created the role of Hoke after first performing it onstage. He evinced a disciplinarian principal in Lean on Me (1989), a hard-hearted Civil War soldier in Glory (1989), and an aging gunslinger in Unforgiven (1992). He made his directorial debut with the antiapartheid film Bopha! (1993). A third Oscar nomination came for his soulful turn as a convict in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).

Freeman later appeared in several crime dramas, including Se7en (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and Along Came a Spider (2001)—the latter two based on James Patterson novels—as well as The Sum of All Fears (2002). He won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his performance as a former boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) before appearing as Lucius Fox, a research and development guru, in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005). Freeman reprised the latter role in the sequels The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). In Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List (2007), he and Jack Nicholson played terminally ill cancer patients who make the most of their remaining time.

In 2008 Freeman returned to Broadway after nearly 20 years away from the stage, taking the role of Frank Elgin, a talented yet dispirited actor who has lost the will to perform, in The Country Girl. The following year he reteamed with Eastwood on Invictus, a drama in which he played Nelson Mandela, who sought to unite divided South Africa by supporting the national rugby team’s quest to win the 1995 World Cup. Freeman later appeared as a former CIA agent in the action comedy Red (2010), as a high-ranking U.S. politician in the thriller Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and the follow-up London Has Fallen (2016), as a postapocalyptic survivalist in the science-fiction adventure Oblivion (2013), and as a magician who exposes the tradecraft of his confreres in Now You See Me (2013) and its 2016 sequel. He also pursued less-suspenseful fare with roles in the sentimental dramas Dolphin Tale (2011) and its sequel, Dolphin Tale 2 (2014), and in The Magic of Belle Isle (2012).

Freeman went for laughs in the buddy comedy Last Vegas (2013), in which he starred opposite Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, and Kevin Kline. He later voiced a wizard in The LEGO Movie (2014), a computer-animated adventure that featured renderings of LEGO toys as the characters and settings. His other roles in 2014 included an anti-artificial-intelligence activist in Transcendence and a psychology professor in Lucy. Freeman’s later films included the comedies Ted 2 (2015); Going in Style (2017), a remake of the 1979 film about retirees who plan a bank heist; and Just Getting Started (2017), in which two rivals at a retirement community team up to save the woman of both their affections from her kidnappers.

Freeman was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Kennedy Center Honor in 2008 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2012.

Filmography
Brubaker (1980)
Marie (1985)
That Was Then... This Is Now (1985)
Street Smart (1987)
Glory (1989)
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Lean on Me (1989)
Johnny Handsome (1989)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Outbreak (1995)
Seven (1995)
Chain Reaction (1996)
Moll Flanders (1996)
Amistad (1997)
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Deep Impact (1998)
Nurse Betty (2000)
Along Came a Spider (2001)
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
High Crimes (2002)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Unleashed (2005)
An Unfinished Life (2005)
Batman Begins (2005)
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
10 Items or Less (2006)
Evan Almighty (2007)
Gone, Baby, Gone (2007)
The Bucket List (2007)
Feast of Love (2007)
Wanted (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Invictus (2009)
RED (2010)
Dolphin Tale (2011)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Magic of Belle Isle (2012)
Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Oblivion (2013)
Now You See Me (2013)
Last Vegas (2013)
The Lego Movie (2014)
Transcendence (2014)
Lucy (2014)
Dolphin Tale 2 (2014)
Momentum (2015)
Ted 2 (2015)
London Has Fallen (2016)
Now You See Me 2 (2016)
Going In Style (2017)
Just Getting Started (2017)
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)
Angel Has Fallen (2019)