Throughout his exceptionally prodigious career, Morgan Freeman has been very selective about the small screen. Though TV fans have seen him in some memorable recurring roles in serial dramas like Another World, The Twilight Zone, and Madam Secretary, those have been few and far between, and he’s certainly never been a regular cast member on any television series … until now, that is.
For the second season of Lioness (formerly, Special Ops: Lioness), the Academy Award-winning actor was elevated to series regular for the first time in his industrious career, and the entire reason he decided to commit to this gig was simple enough.
“Taylor Sheridan,” he told TV Insider when asked about his choice to join the show. “I’m so enamored of him and his work. He’s so prolific, and it’s always good.”
According to Freeman, Sheridan approached him with the role as an offer he simply could not refuse in Season 1: “I was cast by him to play the role that he wrote. So it’s almost as if he’s saying to me, ‘I wrote this for you,’ which is flattering in and of itself,” Freeman remembered. “After that, there’s nothing like putting on a pair of comfortable shoes.”
It’s also a first for Freeman that his character, Edwin Mullins, happens to be the secretary of state for the U.S., but he’s used to portraying high-ranking government officials (he’s previously portrayed a president, chief justice, and speaker of the house, to name a few). Luckily for Freeman, his process is exactly the same for all of them. “It doesn’t differ. My preparation is the same as always: Read the script and know how you fit in and then learn their lines. So simple.”
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Freeman has a high regard for what his character has to do as a global diplomat. “Diplomats have one serious task and that is putting out political fires damping down, trying to ameliorate disagreements. And so I think sometimes, as such, you have to learn to tap dance, using discretion,” he said. “This is going to hot spots where it is your task to try and settle differences: ‘Let’s not get too upset with each other here. Let’s sit and talk.’ And in the situation that I’m in here where I’m secretary of state relying on a bunch of killers, that’s political dynamite. So I handle with care. ‘Let’s not go off half-cocked anywhere and do something we are all gonna be very sorry for.’”
Lioness, Sundays, Paramount+
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