By BILL KELLER


Morgan Freeman has been cast as God - twice - so he evidently has no trouble projecting moral authority. The challenge of portraying Nelson Mandela, then, was not the size of the halo, but knowing the performance would be measured against the real, familiar Mandela, and his myth. “If we can say any part of acting is hard, then playing someone who is living and everybody knows would be the hardest,” Mr. Freeman said in a phone interview.

The role has defeated actors as varied as Danny Glover (the 1987 TV film “Mandela”), Sidney Poitier (“Mandela and de Klerk,” 1997, also for TV) and Dennis Haysbert (“Goodbye Bafana,” 2007), in vehicles that were reverential and mostly forgettable.

But as someone who studied Mr. Mandela as The New York Times correspondent in South Africa while he replaced an apartheid regime with a genuine democracy, I found Mr. Freeman’s performance in the film “Invictus,” directed by Clint Eastwood, uncanny - less an impersonation than an incarnation.

He gets the rumble and halting rhythm of Mr. Mandela’s speech, the erect posture and stiff gait. There is a striking physical resemblance, enhanced by the fact that Mr. Freeman, 72, is just a few years younger than Mr. Mandela was in the period the film covers. More important, he conveys the manipulative charm, the serene confidence, the force of purpose, the hint of mischief and the lonely regret that made Mr. Mandela one of the most fascinating political figures of his time.

“Invictus,” which opens this month in the United States and Canada, and in January and February in Australia, Japan and much of Europe, is a parable of racial reconciliation built around a 1995 World Cup rugby match in South Africa. The story, drawn from John Carlin’s book “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation,” begins with the newly inaugurated president of post-apartheid South Africa looking for ways to enlist his fearful white minority in the business of governing a democracy.

His inspired stratagem is to embrace the Springboks national rugby team, the darlings of the formerly ruling Afrikaners and, for most nonwhite South Africans, a symbol of brutal and humiliating repression.

The new president sets the team’s captain (Francois Pienaar, played by Matt Damon) the improbable goal of winning the World Cup; the tournament is to be held in South Africa in a year, and the Springboks are given little chance. Mr. Mandela sets himself the considerably more improbable goal of uniting the country behind the team. So loathed were the Springboks among blacks that those few who showed up for matches rooted loudly for the other side.

According to Mr. Freeman, his mission to portray Mr. Mandela on the screen began with a public invitation from the subject himself. At a press conference to promote the publication of his 1994 memoir, “Long Walk to Freedom,” someone asked Mr. Mandela who should play him in the movie.

“And he said he wanted me,” Mr. Freeman recalled. “So it became. That was the whole sanction, right there.”

The South African film producer Anant Singh, who bought the movie rights to “Long Walk,” arranged for Mr. Mandela and Mr. Freeman to meet.

Though as president Mr. Mandela could be surprisingly approachable, he has become more reclusive since stepping down in 1999. But he obliged Mr. Freeman.

After buying the rights to Mr. Carlin’s book, Mr. Freeman persuaded Mr. Eastwood to direct. (Their two previous collaborations, “Unforgiven” and “Million Dollar Baby,” both won best picture Oscars.) They hired Anthony Peckham, a South African emigre, to write the script.

Mr. Carlin said Mr. Freeman “channels Mandela beautifully.” Most important, he said, the actor, abetted by the screenwriter, “impressively conveys the giant solitude of Mandela.”

For me the realization that Mr. Freeman had mastered it came as the film ended. Alongside the closing credits came still photos of the actual rugby match, and the actual Mandela. And for a second I wondered, “Who is that impostor?”


WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES / Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in “Invictus,” a tale of rugby and racial reconciliation.