(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 17 December 2025 2:30, UK
Morgan Freeman has had such a long and unique career in the entertainment industry that there aren’t many people he hasn’t had the chance to work with yet. Although Freeman has been very frank about the performers who inspired him, he’s also considered to be a living legend by those who grew up with his films.
While it was his dramatic role that first began earning Freeman attention, he also has a history of being in action-packed genre thrillers, even if there were a few that he didn’t want to make, and one of the most surprising appearances Freeman made was in the 2013 action film Olympus Has Fallen, in which he portrayed the Speaker of the House Allan Trumball.
Ironically, Olympus Has Fallen was one of two films in 2013 that had the premise of “Die Hard in the White House”, as the Roland Emmerich-directed action thriller White House Down debuted a few months later.
Despite being dwarfed in budget and star power when compared to White House Down, Olympus Has Fallen was a surprise hit and ended up starting its own franchise. The third film, Angel Has Fallen, featured Trumball as the new president, who has re-hired Banning to serve as his new head of security.
The film started out on an exciting note when a drone attack threatens a private fishing trip in Williamsburg, which forces Banning to submerge himself and Trumball in the water of a lake. Although the scene comes off as death-defying and intense, Butler told Mirror that he was worried he’d actually put Freeman in danger.
“He dives off a boat, then I have to push him underwater, and we run in and out of cars,” Butler said. “I was going, ‘please, don’t kill Morgan’. I almost killed Hilary Swank on PS I Love You. I’m very capable of killing other actors; not deliberately, just because I’m an idiot.”
Butler referenced filming the romantic-comedy PS I Love You, where an on-set blunder became inadvertently dangerous to Swank, his co-star. Thankfully, neither of Butler’s accidents seemed to affect the end result of either film; in fact, Eagle Has Fallen went on to become a moderate financial success. While it didn’t outperform either of its predecessors, it was also working off a lower budget and less considerable marketing spend.
Freeman’s performance is one of the main reasons why the Has Fallen series has consistently proven to be “better than expected”. While there’s nothing narratively in the films that hasn’t been seen before in many other Die Hard knock-offs, there’s a sincerity and integrity to the performances that indicate that the series is taking itself seriously, and Freeman, who has a history of playing commanding figures of authority in classics like Lean on Me and Invictus, was perfectly suited to play the compassionate leader of the United States.
Although the spinoff series Paris Has Fallen was released in international territories, news on a potential fourth film in the main franchise has been slow. Should Butler return to reprise his role as Banning, it wouldn’t feel right if Freeman didn’t join him.
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