Acting means living, it's all I do and all I'm good at. If I weren't getting paid well, I would still be acting in a small troupe somewhere.
All my life, all my life that I can, as far back as I can remember, I saw my first movie when I was six years old. And since then I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a part of that.
And finding the hat, I always like to find the hat. And then props just dress the set. It's all fabulous.
And some places you been before are so great that you don't ever mind going back. Some places you been before you don't ever want to go back, you know, like Montreal in the Winter.
And that if you become a star, people are going to go to see you. If you remain an actor, they're going to go and see the story you're in.
As you grow in this business, you learn how to do more with less.
Black history is American history.
But I can say that life is good to me. Has been and is good. So I think my task is to be good to it. So how do you be good to life? You live it.
Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
Getting a standing ovation was kind of humbling that so many people are so happy that I have been named for this award. A lot of people say you're due - maybe you are, maybe you aren't - it's an accolade.
Give me something interesting to play and I'm happy.
However, if you're like me, a person who really detests cold, it's hard to work in those conditions. You can't get me warm if you get me outside. You can stuff me with all kinds of clothes and pour hot soup all over me, I'm cold and I don't like it, and you can't make me like it.
I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.
I can only be so long without work before I start getting antsy.
I didn't think about it at all because the way you do narration, when I've done narration or these voice-overs, we sit down in a room with a microphone and a tape recorder and I just read it. I'm not thinking about what I'm doing, I'm just trying to live the dialogue, as it were.
I don't get off on romantic parts. But I often think if I had had my dental work done early on, well, maybe.
I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.
I feel fine, I don't care who the director is. All you have to do is know what your doing - all of us - everybody in the business - that's all you ask anyone - you know your job, I know mine, let's go do it.
I got a job as a member of the Inca chorus on a bus and truck tour of The Royal Hunt of the Sun in 1966.
I joined the air force. I took to it immediately when I arrived there. I did three years, eight months, and ten days in all, but it took me a year and a half to get disabused of my romantic notions about it.
I knew at an early age I wanted to act. Acting was always easy for me. I don't believe in predestination, but I do believe that once you get where ever it is you are going, that is where you were going to be.
I like the blues a lot. I grew up on it.
I like the character roles. Somewhere back there I really came to the conclusion in my mind that the difference between acting and stardom was major.
I'm a boxing fan, but I can't tell you who fought who. I don't know the difference in the weight classes. I can't tell you a middleweight from a welterweight.
If you're playing somebody who is not you, then you can imagine that you are that person. You can feel like he feels, move like he moves, look like he looks - in your own mind.
It can have an enormous effect because big budget movies can have big budget perks, and small budget movies have no perks, but what is the driving force, of course, is the script, and your part in it.
It's sort of well-known that anytime any catastrophe happens anywhere in the world, they can count on the United States for help.
It's what I learn from the great actors that I work with. Stillness. That's all and that's the hardest thing.
Just that working with Clint again is like coming home.
Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance.
Let me be the first to tell you, drinking alcohol is the worst thing to do in cold weather. Hot soup is the best because the process of digesting food helps to warm you up.
Let me tell you about being executive producer. It is not a job, it's a title. Don't go around asking executive producers what they do because they don't do anything, alright?
Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
Most of the time it's the role. Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it just the paycheck. It's the little movies that come out as stories or the fact that I have work to go out, you know what I'm saying, you can only be out so long without work, you start getting antsy.
My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it.
My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.
Not only do I have to live, right, I have to get some cash for my troubles - it's a scary thing, and people need to start to think about the messages that they send in the movies.
Once you've gotten the job, there's nothing to it. If you're an actor, you're an actor. Doing it is not the hard part. The hard part is getting to do it.
People hear that and say I'm being modest, but I am not a modest person, but I have to be truthful about what I'm doing and what I'm doing is channeling.
People say it's a movie about boxing, but... I don't agree at all. I don't think it's a movie about boxing. Boxing is like a platform. It's just a stage where this is played out.
Played some great dance music and I lived in places not to far from Clarksdale, Mississippi and Clarksdale is the story home of the blues.
So it was during my time doing Brecht that I taught myself how to roll cigarettes.
Somerset's thing was that you're actually compounding a wrong because we have a system of checks and balances: laws that deal with wrongdoing and you're not doing anything good to work outside of that societal order.
Still, it can be more effective to accomplish what you need to accomplish with the minimum effort. Watch Anthony Hopkins. He doesn't appear to be doing anything. He is so still that you can't see him working, but you are drawn into his character through his very stillness.
The accident was a horrible thing - but that horrible thing made Chris, at the end of his life, Superman. It's a happy irony if there is such a thing. I'm proud to have known him.
The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit.
This kid came up with Napster, and before that, none of us thought of content protection.
When I was a teenager, I began to settle into school because I'd discovered the extracurricular activities that interested me: music and theater.
When I was doing theater, I was very successful at believing that I was great, God's gift to the theater.
You want to be home about three weeks after you left in a big way but the family's okay, particularly if you're going someplace you never been before.
You're going to relegate my history to a month.
Morgan played the role of God in the 2003 film Bruce Almighty and it's sequel in 2007, Evan Almighty.
Morgan was presented with a 'Career Achievement Award' at the Acapulco Black Film Festival, in 1998.
Morgan released a cookbook on October 3, 2006 called Morgan Freeman and Friends: Caribbean Cooking for a Cause. A portion of the books proceeds will be donated to the 'Grenada Relief Fund'.
Morgan was presented with an honorary degree of 'Doctor of Arts and Letters' by Delta State University on May 13, 2006.
Morgan played the role of Lucius Fox in the 2005 film Batman Begins. He also voiced the same character in the video game.
Morgan has donated $250,000 to establish a chair of performing arts at Hutchison School for Girls in Memphis.
Morgan career as a preforming artist started with him dancing at the World Fair in 1964.
Morgan grew up with his grandparents in Charleston, Mississippi, but spent his summers with his parents in Chicago.
Morgan height is 6' 2"(1.89 m).
Morgan also loves to sail and owns his own boat which he keeps in the Caribbean. He rarely gets to sail however with his busy schedule.
Morgan is the voice behind the public service announcements about “National Parks”.
Morgan loves to fly and recently trained for and received his Private Pilots license.
Morgan married Jeanette Bradshaw in October, 1967, and they divorced in 1979. He then married Myrna Colley-Lee in June 1984, and they are still married, as of 2006. Morgan has two sons, Alphonso and Saifoulaye, from previous relationships and two daughters, Morgana and Deena (who is adopted).
As many or most actors have Morgan has two trademarks that he is known for; The first is that he frequently plays character with calm demeanors, the second is he often narrates in films, either as himself or the character he is playing.
Morgan was cast in an all-African American version of the play Hello Dolly in 1969.
Morgan won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2005 for his role as Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris in Million Dollar Baby.
Morgan played Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding (inmate 30265) in the film The Shawshank Redemption, in 1994.
Morgan has won an ALFS Award in 1997 for Se7en, an NBR Award in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy.
Morgan nominated for an Image Award in 1996 for Se7en, won in 1998 for Amistad and again in 1999 for Deep Impact, was nominated again, but didn't win in 2001 for Nurse Betty.
Morgan was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1988 for Street Smart, won in 1990 for Driving Miss Daisy and was nominated again in 1995 for The Shawshank Redemption.
Morgan was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988 for Street Smart, in 1990 for Driving Miss Daisy and in 1995 for The Shawshank Redemption.
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