Morgan Freeman Once Gave Anthony Mackie Unforgettable Advice That Helped His Career

Anthony Mackie felt honored to work alongside one of his idols in Morgan Freeman. But working with Freeman proved to be as much as a learning experience as it was an inspirational one for Mackie.

Freeman imparted on to Mackie some words of wisdom that helped steer his career on the right path.

Anthony Mackie and Morgan Freeman once worked together on ‘Million Dollar Baby’

During Mackie’s rise as an actor, he found himself starring in the Clint Eastwood Oscar-winning picture Million Dollar Baby. Mackie had always wanted to work with the filmmaker, although his dream was originally to collaborate with Eastwood in a Western.

“When I first started acting I was like, there are two things I want to do. I want to be a superhero and I want to do a Western, preferably with Clint Eastwood. Then Morgan Freeman took my role in Unforgiven,” Mackie once joked in an interview with GeekDad.

Freeman would also feature in Eastwood’s 2004 feature. He and Mackie would get along well enough, but Mackie joked that Freeman wouldn’t stop hurting him while filming the movie.

“He was supposed to be fake punching me, right? But he was punching me for real,” Mackie once told The Times (via Independent). “And there’s nothing like old black dude country strength. It hurt so bad.”

Mackie would seek Eastwood’s help on the matter. But Eastwood did little to help.

“And I would go to Clint Eastwood and say, ‘Yo! Morgan is hitting me for real.’ And Clint would say, ‘OK, I’ll talk to him.’ And him and Morgan would be in the corner laughing together, and we’d do another take and he’d punch me again! It was a lesson learnt and also a great experience,” he said.

Morgan Freeman gave Anthony Mackie invaluable advice

After his breakthrough performance in Eminem’s 8 Mile film, Mackie was offered many roles that might have helped increase his profile. But despite still being a fairly new actor, Mackie turned down several opportunities. A lot of the characters he was being offered to play simply weren’t to his liking.

“After 8 Mile, I was offered every rapper, every gangster… Every movie. And then there were certain movies that I wanted to audition for that my reps were like, ‘After doing 8 Mile, I don’t think you should do that.’ So it was a conscious decision on their part that became a conscious decision on my part,” he once said in an interview with Jemele Hill.

Freeman might have played a hand in Mackie’s film choices at the time. In a 2011 interview with The Guardian, Mackie shared that Freeman gave him invaluable advice that stayed with him for a long time. Mackie recalled a situation when he had to choose between doing a truly awful film or doing a play for little pay. Freeman recommended doing the play.

“‘When Hollywood wants you they’ll come get you,’ Mackie recalled Freeman saying. “‘And when they come get you they’ll pay for you. But right now, work on your craft.’ And I did the play and subsequently every job I take I think back to that. I’ve got those words printed out and stuck on my wall.”

Anthony Mackie wanted to be offered all the roles that Don Cheadle turned down

Mackie had a strong desire to star in quality projects. As a black actor, he looked towards other black stars that he’d held to high standards. He wanted a career similar to those performers that he admired.

“The way I look at the game is I just want to be offered all the roles that Don Cheadle turns down. He and Jeffrey Wright are probably the most dynamic and prolific actors of our generation,” he once told BET. “He is kind of like a godfather; I’m trying to do what Don did in a way that Samuel L. Jackson did it. Just go out and keep hitting base hits—everybody’s in the game trying to hit a home run, just keep getting base hits.”

Ironically, Don Cheadle would become a Marvel superhero himself, even eventually featuring in Mackie’s own show Falcon and the Winter Soldier.