Celebrities

Morgan Freeman has decided to change the way he acts and the way that everyone sees him. He said that he is done playing repetitive roles. “You look at your last work and say, `That’s four characters in a row that said, did, thought, acted the same. They’re going to find me out any minute now.’”

In order to break free of this Freeman is going back to the stage in a role that will certainly allow him to be different and to break free from the past. He will be playing an insecure man who has been described as a “bleary bum”.

Academy Award-winner Freeman, 70, joins Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher in a production of Clifford Odets’ 1950 drama, “The Country Girl,” directed by Mike Nichols.

Freeman will be playing the role of Frank Elgin – a stage actor who has been fighting with an alcohol problem as well as his own personal insecurities. When a high-profile part in a Broadway play comes across his path a fight erupts between his long-suffering wife (McDormand) and a producer (Gallagher).

Freeman started off his acting career on stage – but for many years now he has been seen on the big screen. Because of his absence he will find it challenging to get back on stage and do what is required of him. “If you stop working on stage, you sort of stop working hard at acting,” he says during an interview before a performance at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. “Movies don’t really call for as much as the stage does. You have to pump it out on stage.”

“It takes a minute,” he says. “You have to wait until the instrument gets its muscle back. It’s riding a bicycle. You get back on it, the handlebars wiggle just a little bit and pretty soon you’re back to where you were.”