A journalist, a pimp and a story that was never true — Morgan Freeman’s breakthrough film role is dangerous, charismatic and impossible to forget.
Released in 1987, Street Smart stars Freeman as Fast Black, a Times Square pimp who becomes the subject of a magazine profile by a journalist, played by Christopher Reeve, who has invented much of the story. When the profile attracts the attention of police and rivals, Fast Black finds himself trapped by someone else’s fiction.
Freeman plays Fast Black with a mixture of charm, menace and intelligence. He is not a simple villain; he is a man who understands the streets, the law and the price of being used, and he dominates every scene he is in.
It is a signature breakthrough role: after years of stage and television work, Freeman announced himself as a film actor of real power, and audiences and critics took notice.