The movie Morgan Freeman was blackmailed into making: “I didn’t want the lead role”

For obvious reasons, the word ‘blackmail’ carries negative connotations. Ultimatums are issued, demands are made, and they’re better off being met. However, in a rarity in all walks of life, not just Hollywood, Morgan Freeman turned it into a positive.

Having waited patiently for his big break and finally gotten it two decades into his career when a ruthless turn as the pimp Leo ‘Fast Black’ Smalls in 1987’s Street Smart earned him his first Academy Award nomination and propelled him into the mainstream, Freeman decided the best way to capitalise on his newfound fame was to play the exact opposite types of characters.

It worked a treat, considering his performances in Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption earned him further Oscars recognition, and by the mid-1990s he was already entrenched as one of the industry’s most stately veterans and exposition wizards. Still, he wanted to continue testing himself, and the next logical step was to move behind the camera.

Then again, the 1993 adaptation of Percy Mtwa’s play Bopha! remains the one and only time Freeman has directed a feature, so he evidently decided that wielding the megaphone wasn’t for him. Initially, he’d been sought to play the lead role of Michah Mangena, but he wasn’t interested. The producers wanted him involved at any cost, though, so the carrot was dangled in front of him.

“I was approached to play the lead role,” he told Interview. “And was offered the directorial-ship as a sop. I didn’t want the lead role, but I thought it’d be a good opportunity for me to try directing.” It’s not a word that’s used too often, but “sop” is effectively a term to describe something given to someone to keep them happy when their concerns aren’t being assuaged.

In this case, producer Lawrence N Taubman wanted Freeman to be involved with Bopha!, preferably as the main character. When he made it clear that he didn’t want to take the part or be involved as an on-camera participant in any capacity, he was instead offered the chance to make his directorial debut.

If he weren’t directing the picture, then he wouldn’t be involved in Bopha! at all. He’d already rejected a role, so he was led down a path towards the grey area between blackmail and bribery, where it was put to Freeman that either he directed it or he’d be left on the outside looking in.

It was a decent compromise, to a certain extent. “It was a wonderful experience on all fronts,” he recalled. “The one thing that wasn’t quite so wonderful was having to deal with the studio heads sitting and making decisions thousands of miles away.” He’d knocked back the lead and taken the director’s job as a compromise to get him on board, and it turned out he didn’t want to play politics either.

When asked if the studio bosses peering over his shoulder from the other side of the world afforded him much freedom to make Bopha! as he saw fit, Freeman offered an answer that might explain why he’s never felt the need to direct again: “Give me a certain amount of freedom? I took a certain amount of freedom!”