Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones make him one of the most recognizable voices on the planet. He has used his presence to become one of the most famous actors of his generation, during which time he won the Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby, was nominated four more times, and has also picked up Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild gongs. In recent years, Freeman has been focused on the documentary series The Story Of God With Morgan Freeman.
Since premiering on the National Geographic Channel back in 2016, this show has explored numerous cultures and religions. Freeman has been able to bring his natural rapport and gravitas to topics as dense as the apocalypse, creation, why evil exists, the power of miracles, life after death, heaven, hell, and the proof of God.
Earlier this month, I spoke to Freeman and producers Lori McCreary and James Younger over the phone about the return of The Story Of God for its third season, how it has impacted their own religious practices and views, and the future of the series.
Gregory Wakeman, Sojourners: What piqued your interest in making this show? How did it all start?
Morgan Freeman: Lori, you tell this best. It started when we were in Turkey …
Lori McCreary: Yeah, we were in Turkey some years ago at the Hagia Sophia. We were taking a tour of it and there were these beautiful frescoes up on the ceiling. To me, they looked like they were depicting these stories of Jesus, of him speaking to the apostles and the birth in the manger. I turned around and asked, ‘When this was a mosque had these been covered over?’ And he said, ‘No, we have those stories in Islam.’ I was surprised that I didn't know that. Being someone that considers myself somewhat well read. Morgan and I started having this conversation, saying, ‘If I didn’t know this then maybe other people around the world aren't really clear about the connections that our religions have.’ That was kind of the germ of the idea to start exploring God in this way.
Wakeman: What did you want to explore with this season?
Freeman: We’re now looking to show more of the human side of these belief systems and how it affects us as individuals. How people’s entire lives can change as a result of these faiths.
James Younger: Season one was about Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This time, we're more getting into these personal stories and more interesting stories of different religions struggling to become legalized in different parts of the world. The role of faith in people's lives and the role of religion in countries.
Wakeman: Where do you guys visit this season?
Freeman: England, France, Israel, Italy, Vietnam, Nepal.
McCreary: Morgan met two living Goddesses in Katmandu.
Wakeman How do you make sure that you maintain the serenity of these places?
Younger: We definitely make sure we know that people are ready to receive us. We will talk to them and let them know that our intent is positive. We warn them and say, “Yeah, we're going to have a little bit of gear and it is going to be more intrusive than a reporter showing up with a notebook.” Hopefully they’re prepared. In some cases, we really do have to slim down the crew. When Morgan went to meet one of the living goddesses in Nepal, nobody was allowed in that room apart from Morgan and our two camera guys. Even the director wasn't allowed. Even to get the camera crew in there needed a lot of negotiation up front.
McCreary: It was the same in Pompeii. We weren't allowed to come in and make a big footprint. The other interesting thing is if you look at our call sheets it will say, “Be prepared to take off your shoes. Make sure you have a scarf if you're a woman.” We have great producers on the ground who are helping us make sure that we are honoring the space that we are in.
Freeman: There is always the danger of inadvertently trampling on the rights of these different temples, their homes. To be stomping around with the camera equipment and whatnot. It can sometimes remove part of the mystery.
Wakeman: How has working on the show impacted your views on religion?
Freeman: I never thought of myself as religious. I don't today. But I do know that there is a religion that I can relate to. It was very interesting to me to learn that I got it, and it settled with me with no effort. That was Zoroastrianism, which is a very simple thought process as far as I'm concerned. “Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds.” Easy to live by and easy to summon in your mind if the occasion arises that you need to remind yourself.
McCreary: I grew up Christian. I still go to church. I'm a worship leader. I have a deep and abiding love for the community that religious organizations bring, not necessarily the trappings sometimes that we all get stuck in when it becomes an entity. But doing this show has made me look at my own religious practices, my spiritual practices. I’m so inspired by the monks who have daily meditations. So, I've been inspired to look at my own life, not just on a weekly basis when I go to church, but on my daily spiritual practices. Whether it's meditation, or prayer, or dancing, or singing, all the things that we've seen people in the world use to express their faith and their devotion.
Younger: I grew up in Manchester, a classic post-industrial English town. Not incredibly religious. We went to church just a couple of times a year. So, I was lucky. I was familiar with Christianity but didn’t internalize it. But as I got older, I started to think, “There's a bunch of stuff about life that I don't quite understand.” I tried to solve it through science and other rational thinking. I was like, “I can't solve it that way. Why don’t I think about faith?” I didn’t become a Christian. But I realized that in all of the faiths and religions around the world there's an immense amount of wisdom and story about why we're here and what it means. With this series, I have become open to that. And as the series has gone on, I found that there are little gems of wisdom and insight in all of these different faiths. From Katmandu to Guatemala to Africa to London. There are all these ideas. And I find myself harvesting those ideas and they help me to make sense of life.
Wakeman: Will there be a fourth season?
McCreary: I think that there's enough content for us to do probably 10 seasons of this. It just depends on the audience’s appetite for it. It seems, given seasons one and two, that there's an immense appetite. I think especially these days, when there's so much frightening stuff when you turn on the news every night, that maybe to have something that helps you sleep a little better at night is a good thing.
Gregory Wakeman is a Los Angeles based freelance entertainment journalist. He has worked as the film editor for Metro US, a critic for CinemaBlend and a reporter Yahoo Movies UK.
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