Cinema Experts

"I'm not intimidated by lead roles. I'm better in them. I don't feel pressure - I feel released at times like that. That's what I'm born to do.”
Freeman made his acting debut at age eight, playing the lead role in a school play. At age twelve he won a statewide drama competition, and while in high school he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.
Freeman moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s and worked as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles Community College. During this period, he also lived in New York City working as a dancer at the 1964 World's Fair and in San Francisco where he was a member of the Opera Ring music group. Freeman made his acting debut in a touring company version of The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and also appeared as an extra in the 1965 film, The Pawnbroker. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1967, opposite Viveca Lindfors in The Nigger Lovers, before debuting on Broadway in 1968's all-black version of Hello, Dolly!.
Although his first credited film appearance was in 1971's Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow?, Freeman first became known in the American media through roles on the soap opera Another World and the PBS kids' show The Electric Company, (notably as Easy Reader and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire) which he claimed he should have left earlier than planned.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise and fatherly characters. As he gained fame, he went on to bigger roles in films such as the chauffeur Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, and Sergeant Major Rawlins in Glory (both in 1989). In 1994 he portrayed Red, the redeemed convict in the acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption. His star power was already confirmed as he starred in some of the biggest films of the 1990s, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Se7en, and Deep Impact. In 1997, Freeman, together with Lori McCreary, founded the movie production company Revelations Entertainment.
Freeman is recognized for his distinctive voice, making him a frequent choice for narration. In 2005 alone, he provided narration for two of the most successful films of the year, War of the Worlds and the Academy Award-winning documentary film, March of the Penguins. After three previous nominations (a supporting actor nomination for Street Smart, 1987, and leading actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, and The Shawshank Redemption, 1994), he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby.
In 2006, Freeman began filming Rob Reiner's The Bucket List, opposite Jack Nicholson, playing terminal cancer patients who must fulfill their lists of goals. The film is scheduled to be released in 2007.