Is Morgan Freeman as awesome as 'Him' in 10 Items or Less?

January 2, 2009 1:05 PM

I just watched 10 Items or Less and Morgan Freeman seems like a really great guy in it. I'm wondering if anyone has met him and if he is similar to his character in the movie.
posted by xxnopiratesxx to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

It's hard for me to imagine a jerk being on Electric Company. The again, that was 30 years ago. Maybe he's changed?
posted by oneirodynia at 1:39 PM on January 2, 2009

Well, the thing about 10 Items or Less is he plays an actor in the movie, which gives it a weird sort of meta-vibe. He could really be like that, or he could be an actor playing an actor not at all like him. It's certainly believable that he is that awesome, though.

To answer your question, long ago and far away I worked in a bakery, and one day Morgan Freeman came in. He bought a brownie, used exact change, and was very polite. I don't know the man, and for all I know it might not have even truly been him (I didn't ask), but he was very nice to me. So there's that.
posted by wimpdork at 1:45 PM on January 2, 2009

Second-hand anecdote: I have a friend who met Freeman at his blues club in Clarksdale, MS. Said he was very personable, happy to pose for pictures, etc. Of course, this was during a major event in Clarksdale - I get the impression that being friendly was sort of part of his job.
posted by zoinks at 1:48 PM on January 2, 2009

I've always had a soft spot for Morgan Freeman so it was especially jarring to read his comment on hearing of Heath Ledger's death:

"I worked on the same film and I never met him - we were never on the same set. This is as much news to me as anybody and it affects me in the same way."
--Morgan Freeman, co-star in Dark Knight

Maybe he was called at 3 in the morning or was having a bad day (or perhaps he was misquoted) but it's a shame that whenever I hear his name now I think of that odd remark rather than his performances in The Shawshank Redemption, etc.
posted by ceri richard at 2:17 PM on January 2, 2009

Ceri, maybe it's your interpretation? I take it to mean, like anyone just hearing the news, he's shocked and saddened. And his first sentence laments that fact that, although he worked on the same film as Heath, he never had a chance to meet him. Was there more to the quote?
posted by peep at 2:35 PM on January 2, 2009

I was pretty impressed with his interview on "60 Minutes". I don't remember any details of it 3 years later, I just remember liking it.
posted by Science! at 2:56 PM on January 2, 2009

Mod note: few comments removed, please take Ledger sidebar elsewhere thanks
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:13 PM on January 2, 2009

Some friends of mine had a similar encounter to zoinks' friends, and said he was a really nice guy. They also heard the same from folks who live & work in Clarksdale and see him often.
posted by altcountryman at 3:42 PM on January 2, 2009

A girfriend of mine does red carpet interviews and she's met him a couple of times. He's a strange guy.
posted by Zambrano at 3:53 PM on January 2, 2009

Morgan Freeman isn't like the character in "10 Items or Less," and he's not like the character in "The Shawshank Redemption." He's professional and courteous and does his job well, though.
posted by incessant at 6:00 PM on January 2, 2009

I've met Morgan Freeman several times, though I've never been introduced. He was not like any character he plays that I know of, but most of the time actors are not. He was soft spoken, courteous, unassuming and consummately professional. That's what actors are supposed to be like though - affable. It's their agents, managers, etc. who get to be jerks. I have no doubt that who I met wasn't any more the "real" Morgan Freeman than anyone who meets me in similar situations gets to know the "real" me.
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:20 PM on January 2, 2009

My dad is a retired special effects technician, and when he was still in the business I'd always try to grill him for dirt on the celebrities in whatever movie he was working on. Most of the time he was useless and would just respond, "Eh. They're all right." But he did mention specifically that Morgan Freeman was one of the nicest actors he'd ever worked with. (THE nicest, FYI, was John Lithgow. Sylvester Stallone, on the other hand, is a total dick. This is all according to my dad, though, who also thinks that Cyclops Maguire is straight and who holds a grudge against Sean Penn because when he married Madonna in 1985 it shut down the PCH and made my dad late for something. So make of it what you will.)
posted by granted at 7:42 PM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Stephen Fry met Morgan Freeman for his recent show Stephen Fry in America (clip) - Morgon came across really well in that.
posted by JonB at 1:49 AM on January 3, 2009 [1 favorite]