NEW YORK -- There's a youth movement in Hollywood that's shaking up the industry so violently it's being called Youthquake.

Morgan Freeman insists it hasn't made the slightest impact on his life.

"I'm 60 years old. I'm hardly campaigning for the same roles as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio," says Freeman.

"I don't compete with anyone under 50. If anything, I'll benefit because they'll always need some old guys to play off these youngsters."

That certainly has been the case these past past few years as Freeman starred opposite Christian Slater in Hard Rain, Brad Pitt in Seven and Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction.

"I've got a pretty nice life these days," he says. "I have a great career, a great wife and great kids. I'm not struggling up any hills -- I'm on a comfortable plateau."

Twenty years ago, this was not the case. Freeman was a struggling stage actor in New York.

"There were times back then I feared I'd be an old man and still never have got to do what I wanted with my life.

"I had a few really close friends who I'd visit whenever I got so hungry I couldn't stand it.

"They knew when I arrived at their door that I hadn't eaten in days."

Freeman is so busy these days he is turning down offers.

"I'm looking for the perfect 60/40 split where I'd be working 40 percent of the time and living 60 percent of the time. Right now, it's the exact opposite."

Last year, Freeman starred in Kiss the Girls, Hard Rain and Amistad and still found time to star in Deep Impact as a U.S. president who must inform the nation that the world is on a collision course with a mammoth comet.

"I did Deep Impact because I'm a science-fiction buff," says Freeman. "I have this big, old telescope in my backyard on my ranch in Mississippi."

There is no reference to the fact Freeman's president is African-American.

"There was no discussion off camera, just as there was no discussion on camera about my being black.

"I played a black cowboy in Unforgiven and no one in the film made a comment, and I played a black detective in Kiss the Girls without any need to have an explanation written into the script.

"There is a struggle in Hollywood not to notice my color. I'm a bit like the one-armed man. People try not to mention it."

It's the pride in his African-American heritage that made Amistad his favorite project in years.

"I'd have paid Steven Spielberg to be in Amistad if that was the only way he would have cast me, but that wasn't the case.

"Steven said I was the first person he cast, and that makes me feel proud. I am so very disappointed Amistad didn't get a better reception from the public.

"I don't care that it was snubbed at the Oscars."

Freeman says his only other regret these days is "no one in Hollywood is offering me a comedy. I did a lot of comedy on stage and I love comedy. But in Hollywood, I'm just Mr. Staid and Mr. Dignified. That's getting too easy to pull off. I feel the only time I'm forced to work these days is when I'm out there looking for work."


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