Former partners in crime, Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, remain thick as thieves a quarter of a century after they got busy livin’ in “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Today, the Oscar-winning actors haven’t watched their landmark film in over a decade, but, speaking to the Daily News, they have nothing but praise for one another.
“I was a big fan of his work,” Freeman, 82, told The News of his co-star last month, ahead of the film’s 25th anniversary on Sept. 23. “He’s just one of those giving actors. He’s all the way there. Actors like that are fun to work with.”
Based on Stephen King’s novella, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” the film follows the decades-long incarceration of Andy Dufresne (Robbins) at Shawshank State Penitentiary, where he befriends fellow inmate, Freeman’s Ellis “Red” Redding. Their bond anchors the film, which pushed through poor box office results in 1994 to land seven Academy Award nominations — including one for Best Picture. Though it didn’t take home Oscars gold, “Shawshank” remains widely regarded as one of the best movies to date and is No. 1 in the Internet Movie Datbase’s IMDb Top 250.
“I like all the scenes I did with Morgan,” Robbins, 60, told The News in August. “I felt really connected to him, particularly that last scene at the prison, saying goodbye but I can’t say goodbye.”
Robbins, who revealed he hasn’t watched “Shawshank” in 15 years, says he doesn’t “really get involved with [movies] in the way that an audience does.”
“When you’re watching a movie that you did, you tend to remember the specifics of that day or, you know, the challenges that were there and that’s how, at least I … watch things I’m in,” he explained to The News. “It’s a different experience.”
Though Freeman says he only ever watched the film at the premiere, “[Not] having seen it over and over [does] not…do anything to the memory of working with Tim,” he tells The News.
Freeman says the two are still in touch, and his favorite thing about working together was: “All of it, everything.”
Robbins agrees that “the camaraderie between the guys” was the most rewarding part of life on-set.
“I got to know Morgan very well and spent time with him off the set, same with Clancy Brown,” he recalls to The News. “You know, we’re all in Mansfield, Ohio, so weekends were … if my family wasn’t there, I’d hang out with Morgan.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Robbins, who is also an acclaimed director, currently works with The Actors’ Gang theater troupe, which has worked to “[transform] the lives of those incarcerated in California.” His documentary “45 Seconds of Laughter,” premiering in North America next month at the New York Film Festival, sheds light on The Actors’ Gang’s efforts.
Speaking to The News, Robbins also described “Shawshank” as “a great opportunity to look inside the prison system and ask questions and get to know some of the prison guards that were working on our film that were also working in … the real prison [the Ohio State Reformatory].”
“I still have in my office a bowl filled with rocks that some of the actors and some of the incarcerated extras gave me on the last day of shooting,” Robbins told The News, citing Andy’s “rock hound” ways. “So that was a nice little gift from my comrades on the set.”
