In December 2009, Morgan Freeman treated himself to an early Christmas gift — his third private plane, a six-seater Emivest SJ30, valued at around $7.5 million. A few weeks later, he took his new toy out for a spin — a three-day trip to South Africa for work, which included pit stops in Angola and Cape Verdi.
“I’ve had some scary trips,” he says with a small smile. “In my new plane, when I first got it, we took it to South Africa from LA. It was very adventuresome. We stopped in Angola — I’d never been there — they wouldn’t let us have fuel!”
The 75-year-old actor is famous for playing stoic characters like Eddie Dupris in “Million Dollar Baby,” Nelson Mandela in “Invictus” and even God in “Bruce Almighty.” But off-screen, he maintains a wild streak expressed with high-ticket toys like planes and boats.
Here to promote the new season of his Science Channel show, “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman,” as well as his new film “Now You See Me,” Freeman recalls his high-flying adventures while resting his head on his right hand, saying he feels groggy and hasn’t been sleeping well (the next day, he’ll fall asleep during an on-air interview).
But he perks up when talking about adventures on his planes. Although he got his pilot’s license seven years earlier at age 65, Freeman wasn’t in the driver’s seat for the Africa trip. In 2008, he was in a near-fatal car accident in Mississippi that damaged the nerves in his right hand, leaving him unable to fly his three planes. He wears a cream-colored compression glove on it to keep blood from pooling there. He still makes use of his planes and is still fascinated with flying and the physics behind travel.
“Time travel is interesting,” Freeman says, having explored the subject on his physics-based TV show. “The whole thing stems from a theory that Einstein had — that we could travel faster than light, because space and time are like fabric and you can actually get enough power to fold it so you can go from here to there in a wink.”
Tonight’s Season 4 premiere of “Wormhole” is hosted by Freeman who, as an executive producer, has a say in the subjects he explores. So when the former Air Force member was curious about time travel, he geeked out about it with renowned physicists. “I get to talk to exciting people in the production of these shows,” he says.
“We go to five people who are excited about the subject and knowledgable about it and conversant — that’s exciting for me.”