2. Morgan Freeman - Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (The Shawshank Redemption)
If you've ever read the novella in which Frank Darabont's awesome adaptation
The Shawshank Redemption was based upon, you'll probably have noticed that Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding is a rather different character to the one that Morgan Freeman memorably brought to the big screen -in a physical sense, at least. In Stephen King's original novella, Red is of Irish ancestry; Morgan Freeman, of course, is African American. This matters little, of course, but for anyone familiar with the source material, it probably wasn't what they had in mind for this character at all. Fact is, Morgan Freeman owns this character from the moment we first hear that calm and dignified voice narrating over the top of the movie. As Red, Freeman is our eyes and ears for the entire story; he guides us through Andy's tale with warmth and clarity, much like he does in the novel, and Freeman's portrait of this character was one of the inarguable keys to the (albeit late) success of Darabont's movie - and not a single red hair to be found! Rather comically, the line "Maybe it's because I'm Irish" was left in the script as an acknowledgement of King's character's origins, and Freeman's left-field casting. Beautiful.