Whether a role requires an air of gravitas, a playful smile, twinkle of the eye, or a world-weary, yet insightful soul, Morgan Freeman's ability to delve to the core of a character and infuse it with a quiet dignity has resulted in some of the most memorable cinematic characters committed to film.
Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman is one of the most recognizable figures in American cinema. His works are among the most critically and commercially successful films of all time. He ranks 2nd among worldwide top-grossing actors of all time, with his films having earned over $4 billion in cumulative ticket sales.
After beginning his acting career on the off-Broadway stage productions of The Niggerlovers and the all African-American production of Hello Dolly, Freeman segued into television. Many people grew up watching him on the long-running Children's Television Workshop classic The Electric Company (1971-1977), where he played the ironic Easy Reader among several recurring characters. Looking for his next challenge, he set his sights on both Broadway and the silver screen simultaneously and quickly began to fill his resume with memorable performances. In 1978 he won a Drama Desk Award for his role as Zeke in The Mighty Gents. He also received a Tony Nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor. His stage work continued to earn him accolades and awards, including Obie Awards in 1980, 1984 and 1987, and a second Drama Desk Nomination in 1987 for the role of Hoke Colburn, which he created for the Alfred Uhry play Driving Miss Daisy and reprised in the 1989 movie of the same name.
Freeman received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for Best Supporting Actor for Street Smart by Jerry Schatzberg, in 1990 for Best Actor for his performance in Driving Miss Daisy by Bruce Beresford, in 1994 for Best Actor for The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont and in 2010 for Best Actor for Invictus by Clint Eastwood. In 2000, he received the coveted Kennedy Center Honor for his distinguished acting, and was honoured with the Hollywood Actor Award from the Hollywood Film Festival. He won the 2005 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in Million Dollar Baby by Clint Eastwood.
In 2010, Freeman won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor for his performance as Nelson Mandela in the acclaimed film Invictus. In addition to his Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, he also received a Golden Globe nomination and a Broadcast Critics Association nomination. The picture was produced by Revelations Entertainment, the company he co-founded in 1996 with Lori McCreary with a mission to produce films that reveal truth. Since its inception, Revelations has continued to be the frontrunner in the field of digital technology. Revelations' features include the Kevin Hooks' TV movie Mutiny (1999), Stephen Hopkins' Under Suspicion (2000), Lee Tamahori's Along Came a Spider (2001), Ed Solomon‘s Levity (2003), Brad Silberling's 10 Items or Less (2006), Robert Benton's Feast of Love (2007), Peter Hewitt's Maiden Heist (2009), Mimi Leder's Thick as Thieves (2009), Rob Reiner's The Magic of Belle Isle (2012), Richard Loncraine's 5 Flights Up (2014), presented in Deauville, and the Peabody Award winning ESPN 30 For 30 documentary series (2009-2018), The 16th Man (2010). Through Revelations Entertainment, Freeman is an executive producer on the CBS series Madam Secretary (2014-2018) starring Téa Leoni in the main part. Freeman hosts and is an executive producer for the Emmy-nominated series Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman (2016-2017) aired on Discovery's Science Channel.
He was honoured with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, and received that same year the 39th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award.
Freeman's past credits include Brubaker by Stuart Rosenberg (1980), Eyewitness by Peter Yates (1981), Clean and Sober by Glenn Gordon Caron (1988), Lean on Me by John G. Avildsen (1989), Glory by Edward Zwick (1989), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves by Kevin Reynolds (1991), Unforgiven (1992), his first collaboration with Clint Eastwood, Se7en by David Fincher (1995), Amistad by Steven Spielberg (1997), Deep Impact by Mimi Leder (1998), The Sum of All Fears by Phil Alden Robin (2002), Bruce Almighty by Tom Shadyac (2003), Nurse Betty by Neil LaBute (2000), The Bucket List by Rob Reiner (2007), The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan (2008), and Dolphin's Tale by Charles Martin Smith (2011).
He also narrated in 2014 the IMAX documentary Island of Lemurs: Madagascar by David Douglas as well as the history documentary We the People by Aimee Larrabee. Past narrations include two Academy Award-winning documentaries, The Long Way Home by Mark Jonathan Harris (1997) and The March of The Penguins by Luc Jacquet (2005).
Most recently, Freeman starred in The Dark Knight Rises by Christopher Nolan (2012), Olympus Has Fallen by Antoine Fuqua (2013), Oblivion by Joseph Kosinski (2013), Now You See Me by Louis Leterrier (2013) and its sequel Now You See Me 2 directed by Jon M. Chu (2016), Last Vegas by Jon Turtletaub (2013), Transcendence by Wally Pfister (2014), Lucy by Luc Besson (2014), Ben Hur by Timur Bekmambetov (2016), London Has Fallen by Babak Najafi (2016), and Going in Style by Zack Braff (2017).
In his spare time, Freeman loves the freedom of both sea and sky; he is a long-time sailor and has earned a private pilot's license. He also has a love for the blues and seeks to keep it in the forefront through his Ground Zero club in Clarksville, Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues. In 1973 he co-founded the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop. The workshop seeks to serve successful playwrights of the new millennium. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Earth Biofuels, a company whose mission is to promote the use of clean-burning fuels. He also supports Artists for a New South Africa and the Campaign for Female Education. Freeman has been named on the Forbes “Most Trustworthy Celebrities” list each of the five times it has been published since 2006.
He will be seen next in the upcoming feature films The Nutcracker and the Four Realms by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston, and Angel Has Fallen by Ric Roman Waugh.
