Morgan Freeman will always serve as one of the most classy actors most especially for his God-like voice. His being a five time nominee for the Academy Awards still do not stop him from playing the voice over for the recently released ‘Conan the Barbarian’. Maybe we should see him as someone who still works to pay the rent. It is just that most critics found it a bit surprising to hear his voice that is very popular to many be included in a film that is not so prestigious. But of course, if we would look back at his past projects, you would discover that he has lent his vocal talent to many simple projects like the following.
In 1998, Freeman played the role of a criminal for ‘Hard Rain’. It is just surprising since we are never used to seeing him play the bad guy roles. The most usual roles that you would find him fitting would be that of God or maybe the president of the United States. Other stars included in the movie were Randy Quaid and Christian Slater. Come 2002, there was ‘The Sum of all Fears’. This is a Tom Clancy novel film adaptation and includes Ben Affleck as one of the lead stars. Freeman plays the role of a CIA director.
In 2004, he joined the cast of comedians in the likings of Owen Wilson, Gary Sinise and a lot more. It will make you think that maybe Freeman got a bit confused with this film since the character of Wilson was also named as Jack Ryan, same as that of Affleck’s for the aforementioned action film. Taking the voice stint for ‘War of the Worlds’ in 2005 can be considered not such a good move again for Freeman since this came just a month ahead of his heartbreaking voiceover project for ‘March of the Penguins’. So the point is that how can you be able to feel for the penguins when you have just heard him talk about aliens from space?
One of the greatest voiceover works done by Freeman was for the 2007 movie called ‘The Bucket List’. Just the idea that he was able to hang out with Jack Nicholson for a week as told in the movie plot was amazing enough already. The fact that he did the voice over for the entire film made it all the more heartwarming and a film that will bring you to tears.
His voice was also featured in a very funny way for ‘The Love Guru’ in 2008. It made it appear in the movie that Mike Myers is somehow using a machine that uses the popular Freeman voice. It was so cute if not only for being reviewed as one of the worst movies in film history. And then this year, we have ‘Conan the Barbarian’ which makes everyone ask why is Freeman include in this film? Many say that upon hearing his voice as part of the movie, you would wish he was just instead part of the actual movie.
And then of course, there’s him as God in ‘Bruce Almighty’.