I just watched Shawshank Redemption again after many years and was just amazed by Morgan Freeman’s performance. Every word, every line was so natural. I have to say this is the best performance ever, in any movie. Am I wrong?
Morgan Freeman is best at playing Morgan Freeman. Not that that’s a bad thing, and that really was a killer role.
Many will say it’s Marlon Brando in Godfather 1 but I think the plinth is big enough to fit several actors/actresses. My other nominees would be:
Lawrence Olivier in Hamlet
Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse
John Voight in Midnight Cowboy
Samuel jackson Jr in Pulp Fiction
Al Pacino in Godfather II. Even his eyes were portraying emotion.
beaten to it.
Al Pacino in Godfather II
I don’t feel like I have enough movie ‘cred’ to vote for the best actor ever. But, I do agree with Chefguy that Morgan Freeman, while an excellent actor, gives a very, um, predictable performance in Shawshank Redemption. There are many actors who seem to play the same character, or give the same line readings, movie to movie. That doesn’t mean they are bad, but to me, the “best actor ever” would need to show much more versatility than I think Freeman has shown (at least in all the films I’ve seen him in).
Freeman is always a delight to watch, but I would not call it the best performance ever. I wouldn’t even put him in the same league as some of the top movie actors.
Al Pacino in GF 1 and 2 was Michael Corleone would be among my nominees, as others have mentioned. John Cazale in the same movies as Fredo Corleone would also be up there. Not as big a role, but what a great acting job. A lot of good acting in those movies. On edit, I’ll point out that Cazale was only in four Hollywood movies (and a few experimental movies) and all four of those movies won Best Picture. He was not a leading man, but damn, he had acting chops, making unfortunate characters seem most human.
Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia is worth including. Charlize Theron in Monster too. Brando at the top of his game in many movies, and even some of the clunkers was a joy to watch. Vanessa Redgrave in almost anything. Gary Oldman in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Betty Davis in All About Eve, or Now Voyager.
Shawshank is a great and underrated movie. One that can be watched over and over again.
It’s funny, but if you dig around for a bit you will find a poll I set up asking “Who is the greatest male actor of our time?” with 50 different Actor’s names on it, I tried to include as many as I could possibly fit on there. Gary Oldman was winning by a LOT, followed distantly by Daniel Day-Lewis and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Morgan Freeman was way way down the list but had a handful of votes. It’s interesting to note that the poll was multiple response, so people could vote for their handful of favorites if they couldn’t pick just one. Even still, Freeman didn’t have a ton of votes. I did personally vote for him, I think.
The poll however was “greatest actor of our time” so they had to be alive and still doing stuff within the last few years.
Do a search and read the responses! You’d get a kick out of it I think.
When I was a kid, I saw Morgan Freeman on Electric Company as Easy Reader, and I’m so glad he got better. I saw him evolve into the actor he is today. I think it took a lot of years, a lot of roles, and a lot of experience for him to be able to become so natural on screen. He’s just so good, he makes it look easy. After Godfathers I and II, Pacino became the poster child for the ‘look how hard I’m working at this’ school of acting.’
With the lights, mics, and cameras all pointing at you, acting natural is one of the hardest things to do. And I say this as a guy who has spent 30 years pointing cameras at people.
As someone remarked above, Morgan Freeman is good at playing Morgan Freeman. It would be hard to make a good case for him as the best actor ever because of his limitations. And to be frank his role in Shawshank Redemption is hardly one that would stretch an actor, we’re not talking Lear or Hamlet here, or Travis Bickle or Sonny Wortzik. In my opinion Freeman doesn’t even make the top rank of actors. He’s a good character actor and that’s all he is. And the fact that the character (even when God) is always Morgan Freeman helps him immeasurably.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, while always seeming to look like PSH, absolutely disappears into his characters. His portrayal of Capote was stunning.
Ever see Street Smart? He plays a somewhat threatening pimp. It really is something of an exception to the rule of him playing Morgan Freemanish characters.
Obviously hundreds of great actors to choose from.
However, some are more clever/lucky to get certain roles that fit them perfectly.
Morgan Freeman is indeed one of those few who can take even crappy B movie roles and make them seem profound, but for most actors - a damned good script and good director makes all the difference.
I know actors have to work and pay mortgages/alimony etc., but you sometimes wonder how in the hell anyone convinced some Oscar winner to take some crappy role in a film that had to look horrible, even at the first reading of the script?
I suppose if you haven’t had any work in 6 months, or a year, or two years, you start to panic and take whatever is offered, as long as the check clears.
Thus, this is a really hard question - lots of great actors in specific roles, but very few who were able to be picky and choosy throughout their career. Even some of the greats were in films they were/are embarrassed to admit having been in years later.
But yeah, whenever I see a film that has Morgan Freeman, I know there should be at least a couple of scenes worth watching - simply because he is in the film!
That’s not true at all. If you think that I recommend watching Street Smart, the first movie he ever got critical attention for in which he took what could easily have been a very two-dimensional stereotypical role and put a completely different spin on it and his character is at least as layered and threatening as Travis Bickle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLN05rG7G44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3_cEZXiziU
He’s also played a number of other really memorable characters in plenty of otherwise bad B movies like Hard Rain,* Johnny Handsome*, and Dream Catcher which were all terrible movies except when he was on the screen.
For that matter, he did such a good job in Lean On Me that he got many people to actually compare it to Stand and Deliver.
Underrated? By whom, exactly? It’s got 80/100 on Metacritic, 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, three stars from Roger Ebert and a number-one rating on IMDB.
If you’re referring to the yelling school of acting of late Pacino, that actually started much later. He gave great performances after Godfather Part II, including Dog Day Afternoon, Glengarry Glenn Ross, Heat, The Insider, etc, which were all more impressive than Freeman’s forgettable Shawshank performance.
I know that Billy Bob Thornton isn’t Lawrence Olivier but he seems to actually morph into his characters, even physically, maybe even better than Philip Seymour Hoffman who I also like. The difference between Sling Blade and A Simple Plan is remarkable. I don’t know who I would choose as best actor, tho, there are so many of them. Once they become well known it’s easy to pigeon-hole their styles. Even movie critics say things like “In a daring change from…” Denzel Washington did it, tho, in Training Day. I appreciate that it’s a risk.
Just to pick nits, Cazale was in five Hollywood films and they were all Best Picture nominees (three were winners): ‘The Godfather’ (winner, 1972), ‘The Godfather Pat II’ (winner, 1974), ‘The Conversation’ (1974), ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) and ‘The Deer Hunter’ (winner, 1978)
It’s like comparing Bugs Bunny with Daffy Duck. Bugs is incredible, but he always plays the same character. I understand he is the same off-camera.
Daffy, however, was Duck Dodgers, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Duck Twacy, the *definitive *Robin Hood, and any number of other roles. He always tried to stretch his screen persona, while keeping the core of his characterization solid.
We always know what to expect from Bugs, but Daffy continually amazes.
I sit corrected. Thank you.