Morgan Freeman Has Acted in His Fair Share of White House Drama — Here, He Explains Why Lioness Is Different
The great Morgan Freeman is no stranger to (fictional) White House intrigue, having played the President of the United States (in Deep Impact), a Speaker of the House-turned-veep-turned-POTUS (in the Olympus Has Fallen trilogy) and a CIA Director (in The Sum of All Fears).
Paramount+’s Lioness espionage thriller is in a class of its own, though, the Academy Award-winning actor recently shared with TVLine.
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Hailing from the prolific Taylor Sheridan (of the Yellowstone franchise), inspired by an actual U.S. Military program and streaming new Season 2 episodes every Sunday, Lioness follows CIA station chief Joe McNamara (played by executive producer Zoe Salda?a) as she attempts to balance her personal and professional life as the tip of the CIA’s spear in the war on terror.
Freeman’s Secretary of State Edwin Mullins is typically found in the dimly lit situation room, seated alongside Michael Kelly’s CIA Deputy Director Westfield, Bruce McGill’s NSA Chief Hollar and Jennifer Ehle’s White House Chief of Staff Mason. Whenever Joe and her boss Kailtyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) are called in to share their latest Lioness plan, Mullins & Co. put it under great scrutiny, looking out for a wide swath of interests — including the global stage’s, yes but also the unseen President’s.
TVLine asked Freeman if Sheridan’s Lioness offers a more cogent and stringent look at the world of intelligence gathering than that which we’ve seen in his big-screen projects.
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed,” he was quick to affirm in that trademark voice of his.
“I’ve got three things I want to say about Lioness…,” he continued. “First of all, it’s different from any other show imaginable, and the idea that it’s based on fact is hard to accept — but it is a fact, that we’re getting women marines, who have been trained in specific things, and putting them in harm’s way” as undercover operatives.
“My job, as Secretary of State, is to somehow try to keep this [Lioness] team aimed in the right direction, because if they do something that’s going to get a lot of blowback, it could eliminate them as a group,” Freeman explains. As Mullins, “I want to continue [the program], but it has to be continued with a laser-like concentration on reality. ‘What can we get away with? And should we even do this?'”
“There is violence all over the world,” but through programs like Lioness, “we’re trying to somehow get control of it. That’s our job,” said Freeman. “The CIA’s job is broader than just gathering intelligence; it’s also putting out fires.”
“It’s a fun place to be, in terms of working on a show like this,” Freeman enthused. “It gives you a lot of insight, and hopefully it gives the audience a lot of insight. This is a dangerous world, we all live in it, and somehow or another all of us have to survive — even our adversaries.” (Though some do wind up on the business end of a Lioness’ knife or a QRF team’s gunfire.)
Through TV shows and movies such as Lioness, “we learn that there’s no black without white, there’s no darkness without sunlight,” Freeman said in closing. “Opposites exist because they have to, so we have to stay within the boundaries of that knowledge. Your existence is important to me; mine is important to you. So, how do we interact with that idea? All of that is part of Lioness.”
Want scoop on Lioness, or for any other TV show? Shoot an email to [email protected], and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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