Morgan Freeman: The Latecomer

"For a long time, then, you wondered if you were going to get a job? When did that feeling end?"

"When I did Street Smart, and at the same time onstage I did Driving Miss Daisy. A few years before that, I could not get arrested. Then the dam broke. Early in 1986, when I was doing The Gospel at Colonus onstage, and having a great time with it, I got a call about doing Driving Miss Daisy for stage. Now, I'd heard of this play a while before, and I'd read it, and I said, 'This is my song.' My only question was who would play Miss Daisy, because I felt then she shouldn't be that old. They picked Dana Ivey--that was that. Driving Miss Daisy opened within weeks of Street Smart and both got huge attention."

"Do you ever feel like saying to people, 'You should have seen what Morgan Freeman could have done in the '60s and '70s?'"

"No, I've developed this fatalistic attitude. What happens happens as it should. There's no way to go back again. I'm not sure I was all that hot in the '60s. But if I had gotten my break around '66, something big at the age of 30, who's to say I wouldn't have misused myself?"

"You think maybe fate has been kind to you in an odd way?"

"Yeah. Part of the young Morgan Freeman was a jerk! So, I guess so. You think about where you've been--looking back--how did you get here? One step at a time."

"And are there particular things still that you'd like to do?"

"Well, if someone, from somewhere, could come up with another Inherit the Wind, and let me play the Darrow part--that sort of thing--I'd love to do a courtroom piece."

"You talk about Darrow--a famous white role. And in recent years, I think, a lot of your roles have been roles written as white."

"Yes, or not specified, which means white."

"So let me ask you this: once upon a time it was common for white actors to play Othello. Orson Welles did it, and Olivier was maybe the most famous Othello of all. Now suppose, say, that the National Theatre in London wrote you and said they'd like to offer you some parts. And they mention King Lear. And then they say they've got this new play, Lincoln in the White House, about the private, family man. What would you say?"

"No. I'd do Lear, not Lincoln."

"Tell me the difference."

"Lincoln is not make-believe. Lincoln is somebody we all know, as a figure in American history, whose contribution to history is predicated on fact, and who was a white man. And I don't think you should corrupt that. You could make him Jewish if you wanted to, but I don't think you could make him black."

"You don't think it's possible that you have an imaginative understanding of him that's as great--"

"No. I have a problem with a black actor playing Richard III, Henry IV or Henry V. I don't have a problem with Lear because you can shift that, you don't even have to set it in Britain. The story of Lear is not necessarily English."

"But in opera, say, we're well used to black singers doing white roles."

"Yeah, I think so, but opera has nothing to do with what you're looking at, in terms of the actors, but everything to do with the music and the voice. Who's singing it isn't nearly as important as how it's being sung. But when you do a stage play, the audience is going to get totally involved with the actor. And if you stretch credibility, in terms of who's interacting with who, the audience keeps jumping in and out of the play. Everything to do with the stage has to do with the suspension of disbelief."

"So how do you feel when you see Olivier do Othello?"

"I don't really care what Olivier does, he's one of the greatest actors ever. And there's the fact that Shakespeare wrote Othello--I did it and I realized it's a white man's job. Shakespeare didn't know anyone black. I feel that Othello is merely a foil for Iago. It should be called Iago. I didn't realize that until I'd done it. I found myself totally inadequate. Then I saw Olivier do it, and I was floored by the performance. I've seen black actors--me included--never approach it."

"So tell me about Revelations Entertainment, your new company."

"Well, I met Lori McCreary several years ago and we did this project in South Africa, Bopha!. That started our relationship, and as time went on she said she wanted to start a production company. And I'd had a couple of things before, more for acquisition purposes than real production, but I thought, This is a great idea. Now I can get into producing without having to spend all my time on the business. And she's someone I really know and trust."

"But you're at your peak as an actor, and now you're getting into all the compromise. Is there something in you not fulfilled yet?"

"Yes, I hope so. Fulfillment is death. It means there's nothing else you want. And for all the material being written, there isn't much, I find, that is interesting to me, and to the history I want to see treated--the history of other peoples in this country that, if aired, could give an entirely fresh concept of what it is to be an American. This is not just a country that was founded by the white forefathers. And so part of my desire with Revelations is to reveal some of this, the work of the Chinese, blacks, all the diaspora people who came here and created this country."

"Does this feeling of duty come out of anger?"

"No, anger is not what it is. I had my period in there when I was angry, but it occurred to me at some point that you can't be angry about the telling of history. If I want my part told--it's up to me."

__________________________________________

David Thomson is the author of Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles, published by Knopf.

Pages: 1 2 3 4