MORGAN FREEMAN (God) became known nationally when he created the popular character Easy Reader on the highly praised public television children’s show, The Electric Company... but he was already known in New York theatre circles for the critical body of work and characters he had created there.
Freeman won the Drama Desk Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and received a Tony Award nomination for his outstanding performance in The Mighty Gents in 1978, and received more acclaim and an Obie Award for his appearance as the Shakespearean anti-hero, Coriolanus, at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
In 1984, Freeman won an additional Obie for his role as The Messenger in the acclaimed Brooklyn Academy of Music production of Lee Brcuer’s Gospel at Colon us. In 1985, he was awarded the Dramalogue Award for the same role. Then the role of Hoke Coleburn in Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy won him his third Obie Award. His most recent stage appearance was as Perruchio in The Taming of the Shrew at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Delacorte Theatre, with Tracey Ullman.
Freeman’s numerous television credits include NBC’s The Atlanta Child Murders with Cicely Tyson and CBS’ The Execution of Raymond Graham.
His extensive feature film credits include Brubaker, Eyewitness, Harry & Sons, Teachers, Marie, That Was Then, This Is Now, Street Smart (for which he won the Los Angeles, New York and National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Supporting Actor of 1987, and was nominated for both Golden Globe and Academy Awards), Clean and Sober, Johnny Handsome, Glory, Driving Miss Daisy (for which Freeman won his second Academy Award nomination as well as a Golden Globe Award and Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival in recreating the role that he created on stage) and Chain Reaction.
The Shawshank Redemption, a story of hope based on the Stephen King novel, won Freeman his third Academy Award nomination. He also starred in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad as abolitionist Theodore Jackson, the adventure Hard Rain, as the President of the United States in the box office hit Deep Impact and opposite Ashley Judd in the highly successful thriller Kiss the Girls.
Neil LaBute’s Nurse Betty, which saw Freeman performing with Chris Rock and Renee Zellweger, was released to critical acclaim in 2000. Freeman then reprised his Kiss the Girls role of Alex Cross in Along (‘ame A Spider, which was a box office smash in the spring of 2001. Most recently, Freeman again starred with Ashley Judd in Carl Franklin’s High Crimes performed opposite Ben Affleck in the hit action thriller The Sum of All Fears, based on the Tom Clancy novel; starred alongside Billy Bob Thornton, Kirsten Dunst and Holly Hunter in the independent film Levity, which was selected to open the 2003 Sundance Film Festival; and performed in Dreamcatcher, also based on a work by Stephen King. He next stars in The Big Bounce, a thriller based on a novel by Elmore Leonard.
In 1993, Freeman made his feature directorial debut with Bopha!, starring Danny Glover and Alfre Woodard, and soon after formed Revelations Entertainment, a production company developing entertainment product in all existing and emerging media that "enlightens, inspires and glorifies the human experience.
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