Morgan Freeman Interview, Feast of Love

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby,” "Shawshank Redemption,” "Unforgiven,” "Driving Miss Daisy”) at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, "Feast of Love,” directed by Robert Benton based on the acclaimed novel by Charles Baxter. The film is a kaleidoscopic ode to life and love in all its funny, sad, sexy, crazy, heartbreaking and life sustaining facets. In a coffee shop in a tight-knit Oregon community, a local professor and writer Harry Stevenson (Freeman) witnesses love whipping up mischief among the town’s residents. Among young and old, among both parents and lovers, among the sweet and the savage, among humans and even animals, Harry watches in awe as love mystifies, wounds, devastates, inspires, makes unreasonable demands and profoundly shapes the lives of everyone around him – including himself.

From the die-hard romantic coffee shop owner Bradley (Greg Kinnear) who has a serial habit of looking for love in all the wrong places, including with his current wife Kathyrn (Selma Blair); to the edgy real estate agent Diana (Radha Mitchell) who is caught up in an affair with a married man (Billy Burke) with whom she shares an ineffable connection; to the beautiful young newcomer Chloe (Alexa Davalos) who defies fate in romancing the troubled Oscar (Toby Hemingway); to Harry himself, whose adoring wife (Jane Alexander) is looking to break through his wall of grief after the wrenching loss of a loved one. All of these strands intertwine into one epic love story in which no one can escape being bent, befuddled, delighted and ultimately redeemed by love’s inescapable spell.

The casting began with the very core of the story: Harry Stevenson, the town philosopher who doles out advice to all of the lovelorn and newly in love, while his own heart is aching. As they considered the roster of venerable actors who could play the role, one stood out early on. Recalls producer Tom Rosenberg: "Once Harry was there on the page, it was Gary Lucchesi who said, ‘This is Morgan Freeman, this is who should play this role.’ And he was exactly right. Morgan is such a great actor that he was able to keep in mind, as Harry must, not just his role but everybody’s role in the film, and, along the way, he helped all the actors tremendously through his experience and generosity.” Benton says of Freeman, "He’s astounding. He knows what can and cannot be acted, he knows how to be still and he knows how to listen, which are all the most invaluable parts of being an actor. You cannot act moral fiber, or a kind of stature – you either have it or you don’t. I don’t mean even as an actor, I mean as a human being, and he truly has that quality. That’s what makes him a brilliant choice for this role.”

When Morgan Freeman read the screenplay, he felt an immediate affinity with Harry and his role as the man who watches the constant ebb, flow and crash of love all around him. "I do often seem to be drawn to witness characters,” Freeman ponders. "I guess they sort of have the last say, as it were. But this is also quite different from any other film role I’ve done. The whole thing is about love, and as Harry, I’m right in the middle of it all, so it’s a complete departure on that level.” With an impressive career spanning four decades, Morgan Freeman is one of Hollywood’s most distinguished actors and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about "Feast of Love” as well as his upcoming projects including "Wanted” and "The Dark Knight”:

Q: In the movie your character is the voice of reason and everyone comes to him for advice. Why do you think that is?

Morgan Freeman: Well because if you do represent the voice of reason, not wisdom, you didn’t say wisdom, it sort of follows that people will assume wisdom follows reason around. Not necessarily so. My character does not give out advice. If you go back and watch that, you’ll hear him. He doesn’t give advice. The only advice he gives that I can remember is twice. He tells Greg [‘s character] to kind of count his blessings which is a suggestion rather than advice. And he tells Bat to stay away from this child. That’s advice.

Q: But they do all come to you for advice and they confide in you.

Freeman: They come to confide because he’s a ready and willing ear. He listens carefully. He listens quietly. He’s one of those who just listens. You’ll notice that if you have a tendency to listen, people have a tendency to talk to you.

Q: Your character also has a tendency to observe. You were the only one who saw Bradley’s wife falling for someone else.

Freeman: Well she was certainly being intrigued by her. Yeah. But then that is the basic nature of the character that’s on the page. He’s going through this script observing what’s going on around him.

Q: In your life, do you feel you serve that role?

Freeman: Serve that role? No. No. No.

Q: Do you think your character was too busy observing other people’s lives as opposed to living his own?

Freeman: That would be the $64 question in his case. I think that they managed to get their child grown up. He wasn’t a child. He was a professional so where does parental responsibility end? It does somewhere. So I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that was the case. But then you say well what was the case and I have to confess I really don’t know. But then that is the problem with the character. He can’t answer that question.

Q: Do you believe that houses have the ability to breakup relationships?

Freeman: No. I’m trying to be careful in the answer because that is one that can be given wrong. In other words if you’re superstitious, then it’s quite possible that you believe in ghosts and not even know that you do. But I’m not superstitious.

Q: What brought you to this project?

Freeman: I like to work. It’s great fun to dance around with other actors so I do it on every opportunity that seems like the music is going to be good. Of course the music is sheet music that’s on the page. This was good music. There were good dancers involved so that’s a good draw, not to mention getting paid.

Q: You’ve been working on a couple other films: "Wanted” and "The Dark Knight.” Can you talk about your experiences on both those films?

Freeman: "Wanted” is directed by a Russian director whose name is Timur Bekmambetov. Timur , sweet man who is from Uzbekistan and is an interesting director. He’s the first foreign director I think that I’ve ever worked with. I never worked with Milos Foreman who is the other possibility. It was an interesting experience to play in a movie that is described as a graphic novel. It comes from some place I don’t know. I’m very, very curious to see how it works out.

Q: Can you talk about your character?

Freeman: My character is not easily defined even by me who is a master of character definition. I play a guy who ostensibly heads up a fraternity, a brotherhood of assassins. It’s like a guild of assassins and by guild we mean that it’s old. It’s been around for a long time. And they have peculiar abilities. In other words, one guy shoots a rifle from five miles away and hits his target. There’s no straight line in five miles. Is that informative?

Q: What was it like working with James McAvoy?

Freeman: Great. He’s a hard working kid. Maybe too hard. By that I don’t mean he overacts. I just mean that this is an action movie and he got a little ill. But we were in Prague so I remember working in Bulgaria and I also had the same affliction that he came down with. It was like an ear affection that’s really debilitating. Had something to do with the water I’m sure.

Q: An ear infection from the water?

Freeman: Yeah, I was submerged in an icy stream for awhile.

Q: On "Wanted”?

Freeman: No, on another picture called "The Contract,” which never opened here.

Q: What was Angelina Jolie like?

Freeman: What do you want me to say? Something good or something bad?

Q: Whatever you would like to say.

Freeman: First thing I’m going to say is something bad. She’s already taken. She’s an excellent person. Excellent actress. A joy to be with, a joy to work with. She comes by it honestly. Whatever it is, she’s got it.

Q: Did she bring her family to the set?

Freeman: Oh yeah. They were all there. Brad is between so they stayed together as much as possible. He was there. They got to hug. I used to sing to her.

Q: What did you sing?

Freeman: (Singing) Angelina will you get up? She answered back I am not able. Angelina will you get up we need the sheets for the table. [Laughter] She would laugh just like that.

Q: What were your experiences like working on the Batman sequel?

Freeman: The sequel. Alec Guiness remarked one time that he made more money on those two [Star Wars] movies that he was just featured in than he’d made in his whole career and had little or nothing to do. That’s what it’s like.

Q: Have you finished your part?

Freeman: I haven’t finished. I’ve got one more day. I travel all the way to Hong Kong to do it.

Q: Who do you play?

Freeman: Lucius Fox. Lucius Fox is the designer of Batman’s toys – the Batmobile, all this utility stuff that he has, the cape which in the movie is really something.

Q: In Feast of Love with Alexa….

Freeman: Oh, you want to talk about what’s current.

Q: Do you have to put younger actors at ease?

Freeman: I don’t know if you have to. I have a maybe unfortunate habit of… I go on set just like I walk into this room, you know. Nothing special going on here. It’s just us. Because there is a tendency in us to maybe revere flesh and blood and always be like, "Oh my God, it’s…” and it’s not conducive to ensemble work. You want the person you’re going to be working with on the ground, not floating up here because they’re in the presence of something that may or may not live up to the expectation. So, yeah, I work on making everybody at ease, you know. I mean we’re not here to commit brain surgery. We’re here to have fun. We’re here to make a movie. Nothing in this world can be much more fun than that.

Q: Do you get the "Oh my God, it’s Morgan Freeman” thing a lot in your personal life and on the set?

Freeman: I got on the elevator one day and a lady I thought she was going to lose it right there. Her expression was "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” and then she started to laugh. "Oh my God! Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s you! It’s you! I love you! I love you! This is my husband. I love you!” "Thank you very much. You’re very kind. How very sweet of you.” I can’t wait for the doors to open so I can get out of there.

Q: You talk about how much fun you have working, how you enjoy working in ensembles. Are there any movies over your career or even something you’ve just shot that when you think back you say, boy, that was such a great time?

Freeman: Yeah. I do.

Q: Anything you’d like to share?

Freeman: Both movies that I did with Clint Eastwood. I just finished one with Jack Nicholson and Rob Reiner. "Feast of Love” working with (Robert) Benton, Greg (Kinnear), Jane Alexander – a complete, wonderful ensemble. Every day you wake up is "Oh, we’re going back to the set.” It’s not like, "Oh, when’s this going to be over.”

Q: Is there a role you haven’t played in your career that you would like to play?

Freeman: Yeah, lots of them. I was asked this question just a little while back. There was a character, a historical and true character, whose name was Bass Reeves who was a deputy marshal in the 1870s and 80s, Oklahoma Territory, worked for Isaac Parker, the hanging judge, cleaning up Oklahoma Territory and making it safe for settlers, notwithstanding that it was supposed to belong to the Indians. He was a very interesting character and the most interesting part about it to me is the fact that in all of the Westerns that you see, none of them seems to indicate that anybody was anything but white people and Indians and the Indians were always the bad guys except of course in "Dancing with Wolves.” So this would be an opportunity -- and I have been working for close to 15 years on it -- to at least be inclusive here.

One of the problems that we have as a nation is we don’t really know who we are because our history has largely been misrepresented. We all learn quite a lot of it by going to the movies or watching television. And I don’t care what you say or think, as a youngster, you buy it.

Q: What do you like to do on your sets when you’re not shooting scenes?

Freeman: Well I do different things. Right now, just not recently, I’ve taken… I was going to be – you know, you’ve got that sweater on that says Je t’aime – I was going to be facetious – but I’ve recently taken up golf. If I’m not working, I’m somewhere with a golf club in my hand chasing a ball off into the woods.

Q: How’s it going?

Freeman: Really bad.

Q: I’ve never met a golfer who doesn’t think it’s going really bad. Do you have a golf clause in your contract like Sam Jackson?

Freeman: Yeah, somebody told me "Oh, you’ve taken up golf. Well, you ought to be like Sam.” "What do you mean like Sam?” "Sam has a clause in his contract, wherever he goes, he gets golf privileges.” Oh yes, yes, it’s there. One of the things that they always offer you is a trainer for your physical fitness, physical conditioning. Golf is better than having a trainer so they’re happy to accommodate you.

Q: Beside Hong Kong, what other films might you be doing later this year?

Freeman: I might be doing a very nice little film with William H. Macy called "Lonely Maiden.”

Q: Perhaps.

Freeman: Perhaps.

Q: Thank you.

"Feast of Love” opens in theaters on September 28^th.