The authoritative voice known as Morgan Freeman is promoting a new romantic comedy, 5 Flights Up. Freeman stars in this lighthearted film across from Diane Keaton. They play a 40-years-married couple looking to ditch their Brooklyn apartment and relocate into Manhattan. Keaton and Freeman have been friends for years and always wanted to do a movie together, so it should be interesting to see their onscreen chemistry.
Freeman appears to be more interested (at the moment) with another type of chemistry. He has a new interview with the Daily Beast to discuss his love of weed. The article covers Freeman’s 1997 auto accident, in which his vehicle slipped off a highway and flipped several times. His entire left arm was shattered by the impact, and he never regained full use of his left hand (which is why he wears a compression glove). Freeman suffers from fibromyalgia in the affected arm. He smokes pot for medicinal purposes and also because he simply loves the stuff. Here’s Freeman, stumbling into a smoke cloud:
The many ways he enjoys weed: “They used to say, ‘You smoke that stuff, boy, you get hooked!’ My first wife got me into it many years ago. How do I take it? However it comes! I’ll eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it! This movement is really a long time coming, and it’s getting legs–longer legs. Now, the thrust is understanding that alcohol has no real medicinal use. Maybe if you have one drink it’ll quiet you down, but two or three and you’re f***ed.”
He wants full legalization of weed: “Marijuana has many useful uses. I have fibromyalgia pain in this arm, and the only thing that offers any relief is marijuana. They’re talking about kids who have grand mal seizures, and they’ve discovered that marijuana eases that down to where these children can have a life. That right there, to me, says, ‘Legalize it across the board!’ Look at Woodstock 1969. They said, ‘We’re not going to bother them or say anything about smoking marijuana,’ and not one problem or fight. Then look at what happened in ’99.”
Movies about interracial couples: “I don’t think it’s taboo. Cinema is following the real world as closely as they can, and sometimes they’re out front. I don’t think it’s taboo, I just think nobody writes it. This wasn’t written as an interracial couple in the script at all, but that isn’t necessary. The point of open casting is to get the best people for the parts.”
[From Daily Beast]
Freeman goes on to discuss his decades of living in Manhattan and how he feels the city’s demographics were completely messed up by gentrification. After watching plenty of stuff go down on the Upper West Side in the 1980s, Freeman “just got on a boat and left. I went to the Caribbean … can’t beat the ocean.”
Does it surprise you to witness Morgan Freeman waxing rhapsodic over his love of marijuana? I wonder if he and Diane Keaton have ever smoked together. She was quite the convincing stoner girl in Annie Hall. Various sources are adding humorous addendums — including “weed, get in my belly!” — to Freeman’s weed quotes. He didn’t say those exact words, but he totally should have, man.
Photos courtesy of WENN
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmbWpmbIJ6e8yoqaCZnpSzs7HEppinl5ykw6a%2FvrCcnpyPqLygudScn5ihnKGspq3TmKCtl5Sntq%2B3vqKrmKudpLimq8itlqymn6fBoLXTaA%3D%3D