Admittedly, I'm not much in track with most actors, so I don't know if this is a common sort of thing, but has anybody on here noticed that Morgan Freeman is pretty much the same character in every role he plays? He's always the grandfatherly old man who guides a young (insert supporting role here) along to the path of success, sometimes with humor, sometimes with harsh logic.
I've seen three movies with Morgan Freeman (Batman Begins, The Code, and Shawshank Redemption) and it seems like his roles in all three films are interchangeable, like Lego bricks that are the same size and shape.
While he does play that character often; because let's face it,
he is a grandfatherly old man with a cool-sounding authoritative voice you'd want to take advice, buy insurance, or be lectured on penguins from, off the top of my head I can think of numerous films where his character doesn't fit that role:
I'd argue that his characters in 'Seven' and 'Shawshank Redemption' were the cynical ones, and that it was his younger counterparts that gave him hope and a different outlook on life.
In 'Red' he's just a dying ex-assassin who seems to be getting a kick out of going out with a bang.
In 'Wanted,' while he does initially fulfill the mentor role you mention above, he has ulterior motives and is ultimately revealed to be the greedy and murderous bad guy.
In 'Dreamcatcher,' which is a godawful movie you should never see based on a godawful Stephen King novel you should never read, he's a psychopathic military officer.
'Nurse Betty' was already mentioned.
In 'Deep Impact' he doesn't mentor anyone, unless you count the American people while giving an upbeat speech followed by more and more depressing speeches followed by an upbeat speech to the last 10,000 people still alive on the East Coast.
In 'Hard Rain' and 'Chain Reaction' he played pretty straight-up villains as I recall (and Keanu Reaves played a physicist
), but I've tried to block those films from my mind.
In 'Outbreak' he was the morally conflicted weakling playing second fiddle to Donald Sutherland that ultimately does the right thing after letting countless people die first.
And in 'Unforgiven' he sort of mentored that guy who partnered with him and William Munny, but not much. Mostly he was just an equal partner to Eastwood.
Anyway, that's everything I can recall from the nineties on, so I won't go back further. I think the point is made that he does not by any means limit himself strictly to the grandfatherly mentor role.
Good one. 
