Morgan Freeman has a refreshingly blunt answer to the question of what gets him to sign on to a film: money. The Oscar winner told The New York Times that he is willing to take on a project with a mediocre script as long as the cheque clears. "If they're going to pay you enough, then you overlook some of the glitches in the script that happen to be there," Freeman said in the interview, published 2 August 2026 (The New York Times).

Freeman added that script problems often resolve themselves over the course of production — what reads as a "glitch" on the page can get worked out by the time cameras roll (Variety). It is a pragmatic stance from an actor who has spent six decades on screen and has little left to prove to anyone.

A five-time Oscar nominee, Freeman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby (2004). His most recent film role came in Now You See Me: Now You Don't, the third entry in the magician-heist franchise, in which he has played the character Thaddeus Bradley across all three installments (Variety).

The Times piece, headlined "Morgan Freeman Is Pushing 90, With No Plans to Stop," makes clear that retirement is not on the actor's radar. Freeman told The Guardian separately that he has no plans to step away from acting, and in the Times interview he echoed Clint Eastwood's philosophy: keep working as long as you are able. Freeman is nearing his ninetieth birthday (Variety; The Guardian).

For a performer of his standing, the honesty is striking. Most actors at that level speak about passion, craft, and the material. Freeman, by contrast, is happy to name the thing that every working actor knows: sometimes a job is a job. The script might wobble. The money makes it fine.

What makes Freeman's candour land is the career behind it. From The Shawshank Redemption to Million Dollar Baby to the Dark Knight trilogy, his filmography carries weight that few living actors can match. When somebody with that résumé says he will take a flawed script for the right fee, it reads less as cynicism and more as the accumulated wisdom of someone who has seen enough productions to know the difference between a rough draft and a finished film.

Freeman's comments were picked up and amplified by People magazine on 6 August 2026, spreading the actor's straightforward philosophy to a wider audience (People). For now, the message from one of Hollywood's most recognised voices is simple: he is still working, he is not stopping, and he is honest about why.