‘Do what you love and you won’t have to work’
The actor Morgan Freeman is on the telephone from Los Angeles — or so the publicity people say.
He has one of the most recognizable voices on Earth, which also means it’s one of the most imitated.
Even late-night comic Craig Ferguson’s robot sidekick can do the actor’s dulcet tones. So who’s to say it’s really Freeman on the phone?
To make sure it’s not an imposter, I open the interview with the man versus machine query Freeman is asked (and also asks) in the new sci-fi thriller Transcendence: “Can you prove that you’re self aware?”
“No, I can’t,” comes the response, along with a chuckle. “You have to take it on faith. I sound like me.”
He does indeed. So let’s take the leap of faith, which is easy to do with a 76-year-old acting legend who has played God and other omnipotent beings in so many movies:
Does it ever unnerve you that so many people try to imitate your voice?
No . . . I think when you get a point in your career where people are mimicking you or impersonating you, then you have really arrived.
Transcendence is fiction, yet the world it envisions of superintelligent machines using the Internet to overpower humans seems frighteningly possible.
The danger posed by the film I think is real, actually. I really think that that is the future and we’re going to have to go back to basics. Right now, we’re getting further and further away from engagement. People don’t even talk to each other, they just text. Eventually, I think that’s going to break down. In 1929, the stock market collapsed and the reason it collapsed was because it was being sustained by nothing but air. I think we’re headed that way in our dependence on technology now, too.
It almost sounds like you’d welcome a return to the world as it was before the Internet changed everything.
Well, I think among other things we are destroying our habitat. This whole thing about fossil fuels and the danger of continuing to burn them, that hasn’t slowed us down, not one wit. All of these things combined are going to be the undoing of present- day society, I think. There haven’t been any empires (in history) that didn’t implode. So these are my thoughts. It may even be wishful thinking, because I am really certain we are destroying our habitat, we are really doing damage to it. And it may not happen in the next generation or two, but it’s going to happen.
You’re often asked your thoughts about God, since you’ve played Him in Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty. More recently, you’ve played a God-like character in The Lego Movie. Now in Transcendence, you get to ponder the idea of man creating God in his own image. Go back to the Bible, and it says that. The Bible actually says (quoting God), “We will create man in our own image.” So in Transcendence, it’s just the reverse of that.
What do you make of your character, Joseph Tagger? He can be seen as both a bad guy and a good guy, depending on how one views Transcendence. He’s just a guy who was invested in the growth of technology. He was one of those people. It’s all very interesting subject matter, the growth of all these news ideas, with young people coming up with new stuff all the time that enhances technology and our use of it. At some point both Max (Paul Bettany) and Joseph recognized this is dangerous.
Transcendence had me cheering for the “terrorists,” the people out to stop a self-aware computer from happening. So was I. So does everybody. That puts you in a dichotomous state. You’ve got a guy (Johnny Depp’s Will Caster) who is basically a very good person and who is trying his best to do good, or he thinks he’s doing good. But ultimately he’s scaring everybody to death.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption, the prison breakout movie you made with Tim Robbins. It consistently shows up in polls of the most popular movies in history. Does this surprise you?
I tell you, I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know why people are so involved in a love story between two men, which is the way I always saw it. I did not foresee this continuing popularity for it.
It sounds like you still really love being an actor.
Oh, hell yes! If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s true. Do what you love and you won’t have to work.