LIFE ACCORDING TO MORGAN FREEMAN

Having conquered Hollywood and the hearts of the film-watching world, Morgan Freeman has turned his attention to the hard questions. Sue de Groot spoke to him about his quest to understand humanity’s search for meaning

Sue de Groot meets the actor who once played God and is now in search of meaning

WHEN Morgan Freeman steps on to the stage to introduce the premiere screening of his new six-part film, the first instalment of which is about to be shown in the Frederick P. Rose Hall of Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time Warner building on Columbus Circle opposite Central Park in New York, the audience gives out a sound, a mix between a mmmm and an

oooh, the sound of a collective smile. This is swiftly followed by respectful silence.

Freeman has that effect on humans. People still talk about how convincing he was as a benevolent God in the 2003 film

Bruce Almighty. (Some people still think he is God.) Academy Award winner, Golden Globe winner, second on the list of top-grossing actors of all time, permanent fixture on the Forbes list of Most Trustworthy Celebrities, an intellectual equally fascinated by the frontiers of science as he is by human behaviour — if Hollywood had to put forward a candidate for a god election, Freeman would most likely be it.

This project, probably the most ambitious and demanding of Freeman’s career (and he is 78), has taken him to more than 30 cities around the globe, on a journey of more than 100 000 miles. The series is called The Story of God with

Morgan Freeman, which could be interpreted to mean the story of God and Morgan Freeman and what they did together, or the story of how God behaves when around Morgan Freeman. It is neither of these, of course. To avoid confusion, the title really should be The Story of God, with Morgan Freeman as producer, investigator and narrator, but that would be clumsy, and Freeman is the very opposite of clumsy.

When you are Morgan Freeman, it is difficult to announce a series called The

Story of God with Morgan Freeman without sounding as though you are talking of yourself in the third person, so he inserts a comma into the title when he says it on stage, with a pause that elicits a laugh. “I hope you enjoy the story of God … with me,” he says.

B UT that came later. A few hours earlier, Freeman is holding court in a suite on the 43rd floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel next door to Jazz at Lincoln. Through the glass wall the sky is freshly minted and across the road, way down below, the trees of Central Park are flexing gaudy branches off which the sun has melted a light snow that fell overnight. Debutante daffodils have appeared in yellow flounces and hyperactive squirrels run hither and thither in aimless joy.

There is no looking out the window, however, for what are the beauties of nature when Morgan Freeman is sitting, tall and lean and relaxed in soft casuals, on a couch in the same room?

Next to him are Lori McCreary and James Younger, partners in the triumvirate that created The Story of God. They must be used to the look that numbs the face of anyone who meets Freeman in the flesh. It’s a bit like walking past the Empire State building for the first time. You can’t stop staring at it. There’s a strange dissonance when you have seen something on screen so often you feel you know it and then find yourself actually standing next to it. It is hyperreal, and yet you can’t quite believe it exists in such close physical proximity. You look away to make sure you aren’t about to fall over, then look up again quickly to make sure it’s still there.

One might eventually grow weary of staring at the Empire State building because it does not speak. It is unlikely anyone would tire of hearing Morgan Freeman’s voice, which is like a warm