Morgan Freeman is in his 7th decade of working in Hollywood, and even at 88 years old, still doesn’t have any concrete plans to retire from the industry, having appeared in both the third Now You See Me movie and narrated Ken Burns’ American Revolution in 2025. It doesn’t sound like he’s exceedingly enthused about potentially having one of his signature traits duplicated and taken advantage of by AI companies trying to make digital performers like Tilly Norwood more of the norm in an industry where human creativity has always reigned supreme.
Appearing on CBS Morning News (in a clip shared to Instagram, Morgan Freeman was asked about his stance on the wave of AI startups attempting to use likenesses of actors to populate their user-generated videos, and for a guy whose known for waxing poetically with his dulcet tones, the Se7en vet showed off some very non-artificial brevity with his snappy response:
I got lawyers.
If you woke up on whatever side of the bed this morning that told you Morgan Freeman was out here putting up with AI companies’ sh-t, that was the wrong side of the bed.
At this point, voice actors in various corners of the entertainment industry have already taken legal action over the use of vocal likenesses, while several others have lambasted the practice. For instance, The Simpsons’ Hank Azaria has spoken out about it, as has Nancy Cartwright, while actors in the world of anime have spoken out against AI being used for localized dubbing, and for doing a cruddy job at the same time. (All while Disney went the other route by making exclusive deals for its own characters.)
CBS anchor Vladimir Duthiers was pretty tickled by Morgan Freeman’s response, and followed his initial question up by asking if the Oscar winner would be more agreeable to allow his voice to be used by AI if a company paid him the money to gain access. The actor was more amenable to that, and addressed having taken on a similar deal some years back, although this involved another human being who had the chops to pull off Freeman’s voice. As he put it:
I think that’s a different outlook on it. I remember that some years ago, an English company paid me handsomely to let someone in England, who could sound like me, do a thing for them. I said, ‘Yeah, that works.’
Now, he didn't come out and say he'd sign up with OpenAI on the spot or anything, and I could see Freeman being more hesitant to take compensation for digital likenesses that don't involve other actors. But the point is that no one's voice should be copied for money-making purposes without proper conversations and deals.
Just in case anyone thought he was joking about his lawyers being put to use, Morgan Freeman confirmed that his legal team has indeed been busy trying to thwart unlicensed use of his voice. saying "Yes, yes, yes" when asked.
Here's my take on it. If Freeman's timeless Shawshank Redemption quote "Get busy living or get busy dying" doesn't properly apply to the thing trying to recreate the voice, it shouldn't be allowed to. And since AI can't get busy living, it's sh-it out of luck.
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