Morgan Freeman is tired of being asked to record fun messages for people's voicemail systems.
The Shawshank Redemption actor has long used his distinctive sound for voice-over work, having provided the introduction to the CBS Evening News, narrated a Discovery Channel TV show and featured on the opening track of B.o.B's second album, Strange Clouds.
While most celebrities get asked by fans if they will write an autograph or take a selfie, Morgan is regularly stopped by people asking if he will voice an outgoing message on their phone.
"It gets exhausting," he said during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. "You know I can't tell you how many times I've said, 'Hello, this is so and so.'"
Morgan now prefers to avoid reciting messages, and shared to host Seth that he didn't even voice his own voicemail recording on his home phone.
"I have the perfect, absolute perfect telephone answerer (sic). The guy who installed the system was a southerner with the most godawful Mississippi drawl you've ever heard," he explained. "He says, 'Hello, leave a number'. He sounds about as far away from me as you can get. He did it as a test and I wouldn't change it, it was perfect."
The 79-year-old is hesitant to ever change the voicemail because most people who call will think they have the wrong number and hang up when they hear the message. But one person Morgan is willing to take a call from is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for whom he voiced an artificial intelligence application called Jarvis.
"He asked me if I would be the voice, I said, 'Sure,'" he smiled. "(Mark's) a good friend to have."
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