It’s 6 p.m. and I’m sitting by the phone in a midtown Manhattan cubicle, waiting for Morgan Freeman to finish a round of golf in Chicago. Freeman is in the Windy City at the invitation of BMW, playing in the car company’s golf tournament and talking sustainability and hydrogen technology with Tom Purves, chair and CEO of its North American arm. As part of the trip, he agreed to do a few interviews — some of his first public comments on his environmental leanings. I was first in line.
Morgan Freeman.
Photo: Tony Barson/WireImage
Famous for roles in films like The Shawshank Redemption and Million Dollar Baby, Freeman might not leap to the top of anyone’s short list of celebrity eco-activists. And frankly, that’s just the way he likes it.
But there was that March of the Penguins narration in 2005. And the same year, he was named to the board of directors of Earth Biofuels, a Dallas-based producer of biodiesel. In fact, Freeman, a onetime Air Force mechanic, remembers getting his first taste of environmental awareness back in the 1980s, when he inhaled a faceful of bus exhaust ... Read more
