Lucky Chance Brought Morgan Freeman to Acting Career: “It Was a Big Mistake”

Morgan Freeman became famous in Hollywood relatively late. By the time he received Oscar nominations for Street Smart and Driving Miss Daisy in the late 1980s, he was nearly 50 years old. However, Freeman had been acting since the 1960s, pursuing a career in theater and television before transitioning to film. Freeman has openly admitted that a stroke of luck led him to his first professional job in the late 1960s, and it involved a producer acknowledging that he had made a “huge mistake” by not hiring Freeman earlier.

In his 50s, Freeman left his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. He enrolled in acting classes at City College, but as he confessed, he almost failed. In fact, the only thing that prevented him from being expelled was his talent in the movement classes, which were part of the acting curriculum.

Reflecting on his career, Freeman shared with Interview Magazine that his teachers advised him to focus on dance, believing it would help him land acting roles. Unfortunately, Freeman admitted, “I was 22 before I took my first dance class. I was never athletic, so I was very stiff; I’m still that way.” In 1964, Freeman performed at the World’s Fair as part of the Cabaret Union. Despite this, he realized there was no future for him in dance.

Two years later, in 1966, Freeman landed a supporting role in the tour of The Royal Hunt of the Sun and had his first taste of professional acting on stage during a performance in Des Moines, Iowa. He revealed, “The right feeling and power flooded me on that stage that night like a revelation. I thought to myself, ‘This is my job. This is where I truly shine.'”

Freeman’s next step was moving to New York to pursue theater. After auditioning for every play he could find, he made his Off-Broadway debut in 1967, earning $72 a week. Considering how close he came to starving as an ambitious actor up to that point, the amount seemed like a fortune. He admitted, “I was just trying to survive in New York. It was great. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and neither was my dog.”

At this point, Freeman auditioned for another Off-Broadway play but didn’t get the part. Instead, a friend of his was cast. However, when his friend was suddenly fired, Freeman received a fateful call from one of the producers. To his astonishment, the producer admitted, “I was one of the people who didn’t want to hire you, and that was a huge mistake, so I’m putting you on Broadway.”

In an instant, Freeman went from being unemployed in Off-Broadway to landing a prestigious role in the all-Black Broadway production of the musical Hello, Dolly!. It was the break he had been waiting for a decade, or perhaps it was just the fair reward for the hard work he had put into his craft. Regardless, Freeman firmly believes, “That was my beginning.”

When asked by Interview Magazine if joining Hello, Dolly! was a significant step in his career, Freeman humbly responded, “It was a job. Every job is a big step.” However, from that moment on, acting began to feel like a viable path for the young star, all thanks to a producer acknowledging that he had made a mistake.