The stars align and the champagne flows with the Bravo! premiere of THE 39TH ANNUAL AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO MORGAN FREEMAN, Monday, July 4 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Freeman joins an esteemed group as he accepts AFI’s highest honour for a career in film in this special two-hour presentation featuring tributes from his peers and clips that span the breadth of his exceptional career. The tribute will also be available on demand at www.watch.bravo.ca following the broadcast.
Taped last month at Sony Picture Studios in Los Angeles, many of Tinseltown’s finest took to the stage and were on hand at the black-tie event to pay tribute to Freeman’s glowing contribution to the world of film. Praising recipient Freeman, an OSCAR®-winner and Hollywood icon, THE 39TH ANNUAL AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO MORGAN FREEMAN features surprise guest Betty White and a performance by Garth Brooks. The tributes continue with appearances from Casey Affleck, Dan Aykroyd, Matthew Broderick, Don Cheadle, Bill Cosby, Clint Eastwood, David Fincher, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Mike Nichols, Sidney Poitier, Tim Robbins, Chris Rock, Steven Spielberg, Hilary Swank, Forest Whitaker and Renee Zellweger.
“This is easy to take but hard to believe. Where I come from in Mississippi, they call this walking in high cotton,” Freeman remarks in his acceptance speech. “For me, heaven has always been about acting in the movies. I’m proud to be an actor, although for this one night, you’ve made me feel like a star.”
With THE 39TH ANNUAL AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO MORGAN FREEMAN, viewers get a front row seat at the ceremony as many of Freeman’s past directors and co-stars recount memories and share how this remarkable actor has inspired them over the years.
A few highlights:
Clint Eastwood, who received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1996, worked with Morgan Freeman many times over the years in films such as Unforgiven, the OSCAR®-winning Million Dollar Baby and Invictus. “He is the most effortless person to be around and to act,” says Eastwood about their long-time friendship.
For Invictus, Freeman took on the challenge of playing former South African president Nelson Mandela, as did one of his biggest inspirations, Sidney Poitier in Mandela and de Klerk. Freeman spoke at Poitier’s AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony in 1992. Poitier lauds Freeman as “a prince of the craft of acting.”
Forest Whitaker and Tim Robbins were also among the celebrities on hand to shower Freeman with accolades, with Whitaker hailing Freeman as “an adviser, a beacon, a confidant, a shoulder to lean on, protector, and friend.” Representing perhaps one of Freeman’s most memorable films, The Shawshank Redemption, co-star Tim Robbins offered up one of the Tribute’s most memorable lines saying that “it was an honour being locked up with you, Morgan.”
From his early ‘70s stint on the PBS children’s show The Electric Company to roles in such films as Driving Miss Daisy, Lean on Me, Glory, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Se7en, Amistad, Batman Begins and his commanding and indelible voice in the narration of countless movies and documentaries (War of the Worlds, March of the Penguins), THE 39TH ANNUAL AFI LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: A TRIBUTE TO MORGAN FREEMAN features numerous clips from Freeman’s illustrious four-decade career.
