Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman began acting in school plays while growing up in Mississippi. He made his stage debut at nine and won a statewide drama competition at 12, experiences that helped establish his interest in music and theater. His childhood included time in Greenwood and other communities in Mississippi, as well as Gary, Indiana, and Chicago.

Freeman graduated from high school in 1955 and enlisted in the United States Air Force rather than accept a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University. He served from 1955 to 1959 as an Automatic Tracking Radar repairman and rose to the rank of airman first class. After leaving the Air Force, he moved to California, studied theater arts at Los Angeles City College, and took acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Freeman worked as a dancer at the 1964 World's Fair and performed with the Opera Ring musical theater group in San Francisco. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1967 in The Nigger Lovers and later appeared in an all-Black Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway. His stage work included Shakespearean productions of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, as well as Richard Wesley's The Mighty Gents, for which he received a Tony Award nomination in 1978.

From 1971 to 1975, Freeman played several characters, including Easy Reader, on the PBS children's television program The Electric Company. His first credited feature-film appearance was in Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow! (1971). He continued working in theater and television during the 1970s and 1980s, appearing in Brubaker, Attica, Eyewitness, and the soap opera Another World.

His breakthrough came with Street Smart (1987), in which he played the violent street hustler Fast Black. The performance earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and helped lead to more prominent film roles. He also created the stage role of Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy, earning an Obie Award before reprising the role in the 1989 film.

Freeman had four film releases in 1989, including Glory, Driving Miss Daisy, Lean on Me, and Johnny Handsome. In Driving Miss Daisy, he played Hoke Colburn opposite Jessica Tandy and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. His performance in Glory placed him in an important film about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, while Lean on Me cast him as a determined principal of a troubled New Jersey high school.

He continued his rise with roles in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, and The Power of One. In Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood, Freeman played Ned Logan, an aging gunslinger and longtime companion of Eastwood's William Munny. Freeman made his directorial debut with Bopha! (1993), a drama about a Black police officer and his family during South Africa's apartheid era.

In 1994, Freeman played Ellis “Red” Redding in Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption, opposite Tim Robbins. The performance earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He followed the film with roles in Outbreak, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and David Fincher's crime thriller Se7en, in which he starred alongside Brad Pitt.

Freeman narrated the Academy Award-winning documentary The Long Way Home in 1997 and appeared in Steven Spielberg's historical drama Amistad. He also began playing psychologist Alex Cross in Kiss the Girls and later reprised the role in Along Came a Spider. Other notable films from this period included Deep Impact, Hard Rain, and Nurse Betty.

Freeman founded the film production company Revelations Entertainment with Lori McCreary in 1996. Their partnership allowed him to develop projects that explored challenging subjects and offered broader representation on screen. He also produced Under Suspicion, a thriller in which he co-starred with Gene Hackman.

His performance as former boxer Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby earned Freeman the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The film also won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Freeman received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

Freeman appeared in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) as Lucius Fox, a research-and-development specialist who assists Bruce Wayne. He reprised the role in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. During the same period, he appeared in Unleashed, Lucky Number Slevin, Gone Baby Gone, The Bucket List, and Wanted.

He reunited with Clint Eastwood for Invictus (2009), portraying Nelson Mandela in a drama about South Africa's 1995 Rugby World Cup victory. Freeman's performance earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. He also worked with Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, and Kevin Kline in Last Vegas and voiced Vitruvius in The Lego Movie.

Freeman's voice became a major part of his public profile through narration work on documentaries and educational programs. His credits included War of the Worlds, March of the Penguins, Through the Wormhole, and The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. He also appeared in Olympus Has Fallen, Oblivion, Now You See Me, Lucy, and Dolphin Tale 2.

Freeman continued working in film and television with roles in Ted 2, London Has Fallen, Now You See Me 2, Ben-Hur, Going in Style, Just Getting Started, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and Angel Has Fallen. He played recurring and guest roles in television projects including Madam Secretary, The Kominsky Method, and Lioness.

He returned to documentary narration with Netflix's Our Universe and Life on Our Planet. He also appeared at the opening ceremony of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. His later film credits included The Comeback Trail, Coming 2 America, A Good Person, 57 Seconds, Paradise Highway, The Minute You Wake Up Dead, and Gunner.

Freeman reprised Thaddeus Bradley in Now You See Me: Now You Don't, released in 2025. He has also remained active as a producer through Revelations Entertainment and received Emmy nominations for his narration of Our Universe and Life on Our Planet.

Freeman has pursued business, charitable, environmental, and political projects outside acting. He co-founded ClickStar, a film-download company, with Lori McCreary and Intel Corporation, and owns and operates the Ground Zero blues club in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was also formerly a co-owner of the Madidi restaurant in the same city.

In 2004, Freeman helped form the Grenada Relief Fund after Hurricane Ivan. The organization later became PLANIT NOW, which provides preparedness resources for people in areas affected by hurricanes and severe storms. He has also supported ocean conservation and narrated a film presented at a United Nations climate summit.

After learning about the decline of honeybees, Freeman began converting his 124-acre ranch into a bee sanctuary in 2014. In 2021, he and Linda Keena donated $1 million to the University of Mississippi to establish its Center for Evidence-Based Policing and Reform.

Freeman is recognized for a deep, authoritative voice that has made him a sought-after narrator of films, documentaries, and educational programs. He has said that speech classes helped him develop a lower, more deliberate vocal style. His screen performances are often associated with calm authority, dignity, and carefully controlled emotion.

His work has also challenged narrow roles for African American performers. Performances in Glory, Amistad, Invictus, and Driving Miss Daisy brought complex aspects of Black history, identity, and social change to mainstream audiences. He has received three Obie Awards, the Kennedy Center Honor, the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the National Medal of Arts, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

Freeman's major acting honors include the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby and a Golden Globe for Driving Miss Daisy. He has also received Oscar nominations for Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, and Invictus.