His calm authority, deep voice and dynamic acting have combined to make Morgan Freeman an icon of cinema. But it wasn’t until he turned 50 that he made his major movie breakthrough. That came with his Oscar nominated role as a hoodlum in 1987’s Street Smart and he quickly followed it up with another Oscar nomination in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy, reprising the chauffer role he had originated on stage. Freeman had been an acclaimed theatre actor for many years up to that point but once his star was on the rise in Hollywood he abandoned Broadway for the movie big time and a string of film hits followed. Civil war epic Glory, blockbuster Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and gritty western Unforgiven all had a huge impact before Freeman landed a third Oscar nomination for emotional prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. Next came serial killer thriller Se7en, slave story Amistad and then playing the US President for the first time in Deep Impact. He played God in Bruce Almighty before finally becoming a God of cinema by winning an Oscar at the fourth attempt for his role as boxing trainer in Million Dollar Baby.
Freeman took a supporting role as Lucius Fox in Batman Begins and its two sequels before scoring his fifth Oscar nomination for playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus. Now 84 and still not slowing down he has continued to rack up the hits. His latest film, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, has added to the massive box office haul which has made him the fourth highest grossing actor of all time. Morgan is as modest as he is successful. Often called the greatest living actor in film he waves off such praise and humbly declares he is “just lucky.”