20 Actors Who Had To Wait DECADES Before Hitting Big

18. Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman is one of those rare, truly statuesque actors who basically seems like he's been famous his entire life - or rather, he's been famous for our entire lives.

Yet Freeman didn't get his well-deserved breakout until he was almost 50, when he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his superb performance in the 1987 crime thriller Street Smart.

For more than 20 years prior to this, Freeman had worked steadily on TV and in film, most famously in the sketch comedy series The Electric Company, while also earning a Tony nomination on stage for his role in 1978's The Mighty Gents.

Freeman was certainly a respected actor long before he rose to fame, but after Street Smart he swiftly became a bonafide Hollywood icon, absolutely unforgettable in the likes of Driving Miss Daisy, Unforgiven, The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, and of course Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, among so many more.

Freeman is basically part of the furniture in Hollywood and it's always felt this way for moviegoers of a certain age, even if he actually had quite the steep climb to get there.