Freeman Was Well Prepared To Pay Mandela
By WENNSaturday, December 5, 2009
MORGAN FREEMAN insists he’s been preparing to portray former South African leader NELSON MANDELA on the big screen for years - after the great man himself told the actor he should be the one to play him in a movie.
The Driving Miss Daisy star has won acclaim for playing Mandela in Clint Eastwood’s new movie Invictus and he admits he came to the role very well prepared.
Freeman, who first met Mandela in the early 1990s, tells Parade magazine, “He told me he wanted me to play him in a movie someday (and) I said, ‘Then I need access to you, and I need to be able to hold your hand.’ He said, ‘We’ll do that.’
“So anytime we were anywhere in proximity after that, we’d schmooze. I’ve always been preparing for the time I stepped in front of the camera as him. The luckiest part of my entire existence is finding this script and sending it to Clint, and then he said, ‘Yes.’”
