Morgan Freeman not interested in '12 Years a Slave'

(UPI) -- Morgan Freeman doesn't avoid wading into tough conversations about race, but one of the year's most high-profile films on the subject is one the legendary actor plans to skip.

"I saw a television movie that was made a few years ago about the same character" featured in 12 Years a Slave, Freeman said. "But I don't particularly want to see it."

"I don't want my anger quotient exacerbated, you know?" he said. "Things are bad enough as they are. I don't want to keep punching myself in the face with it."

Freeman made waves last year when he said he didn't consider President Barack Obama to be the first black president, although he meant it as a dig toward Obama's Republican detractors.

Several years on, with the political climate getting, if possible, even worse, Freeman is even more exasperated.

"The lengths that people will go to to show their prejudices!" Freeman said. "You see some of these signs that say, 'TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!' What the [expletive] is that? Whose country are you talking about?"

"Obama was legitimately elected president," he continued. "If you don’t like that, fine, either move out, or make your point and get yourself elected, but don’t tear the country apart! That’s not going to get you anywhere."

"I think the Republicans have pretty much destroyed themselves by allowing themselves to be controlled by a small contingent of people with a lot of money."

But when Freeman, who has played everyone from a fictional U.S. president to Nelson Mandela to God, speaks, people tend to listen (even when it turns out not actually to be him).

Noted for his civil rights activism, Freeman has turned his clout (and instantly recognizable voice) toward another issue he cares deeply about.

Gay rights, he said is the "civil rights movement of our time."

"I’m in show business and I’m an ex-dancer," he explained. "I have an enormous number of gay friends. Marginalizing people for that?"

"These people who are ignorant enough to think that being gay is a 'chosen lifestyle?' That’s the height of ignorance," he said. "It’s like saying being black is a chosen lifestyle. Get out of here!"

Freeman, 76, will next be in theaters starring in Last Vegas, a buddy comedy with Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Kevin Kline. Last Vegas will be released November 1.