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He suffers, he sweats and he freezes for his thespian art, and never complains -- almost never complains.
Mention the R-word, and listen to him gripe.
"Aw gawd, yeah," moans the 61-year-old recently at a mid-Manhattan hotel suite. "Running."
Freeman grimaces: "I don't like running when I have to run all day, or night, as the case may be.
"And, oh yeah, I say 'enough' to the director when it's enough. Usually, I say it four or five times until they believe me. If they don't, I just quit for the day."
Actually, Freeman is having some good-natured fun at his own, and his career's expense since he has been featured prominently in some "running movies" lately -- Seven, Chain Reaction and Kiss The Girls.
In Deep Impact, opening tomorrow, Freeman doesn't need to run, he needs to look presidential.
The sci-fi disaster picture features Freeman as the American president who tries to prepare the world for a massive, extinction-threatening comet hurtling toward earth.
Also starring in the picture are Tea Leoni, Robert Duvall, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell. But Freeman has the toughest assignment.
Mention the fact that there aren't many actors who could pull off his modern-day presidential portrayal, and Freeman gets a little cantankerous at the intended compliment.
"I don't think there is just one monkey in this business," he suggests. "If I wasn't around, you wouldn't even miss me."
Freeman isn't being modest or cynical, just realistic about a craft and an industry he knows too well.
He speaks from experience, and the reality kick of the shocking mid-life career crisis he endured when he was out of work with no job in sight.
"I have a filmography that starts in the 1960s, then in 1981 it jumps to 1984," he reports.
"I had just finished Welcome To Success in 1981, and I was riding the crest of the wave, and then boom. Nothing."
The supporting-actor Oscar nomination as the pimp in Street Smart turned his slump around, as did subsequent best-actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption.
But he remembers those days well, whether he wants to or not.
So ask Freeman what's next, and he pauses in memory of the bad times.
But no, he won't confirm some good times. That's that he signed a big movie deal to play the cop psychologist in Along Comes The Spider, another in the series from the Kiss The Girls author, James Patterson.
Instead of confirming that he's entertaining the lucrative offer, which he is, Freeman grins, then offers this no comment.
"I'm unemployed," says the Memphis-born actor, "but now I don't have to work. I have too many toys."
As in Freeman owns five horses, a sailboat and a spread in Mississippi where he's constructing his own version of Tara.
"Want some advice -- don't do it," says Freeman of the major construction.
"Ya know when I was supposed to be finished? September, 1994."
He barely manages a smirk this time. Obviously, mansion-building is second only to running in the Morgan Freeman list of things not to do.