The Shawshank Redemption first hit UK cinema screens in 1995 and has gone on to be considered as one of the greatest films of all time – but what have the cast been up to since?
It has been 30 years today (February 15) since what is considered one of the greatest movie ever started to hit screens in the UK.
The Shawshank Redemption turned a short novel by Stephen King into a 142 minute prison epic, which viewers could barely tear their eyes from.
So huge was the impact of the film it picked up seven Oscar nominations for the 1995 awards, but somewhat surprisingly considering the reverence with which it is held, it won none. Leading the cast were two Hollywood heavyweights of the 90s.
Both Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins were perfectly cast as the unlikely heroes, who are forced to spend decades behind bars.
And aside from the main pair was a robust cast of characters to add extra value to the powerful movie.
So in the three decades that have passed since the film film first touched our hearts in the UK, what have the cast been up to?
Tim Robbins
Robbins played Andy Dufresne, a banker convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. He was already an experienced actor when The Shawshank Redemption came out, having starred in Top Gun (1986), Bill Durham (1988), Twister (1989), and The Player (1992).
Two years later, he received his first Oscar nomination for directing Dead Man Walking and later won for 2003’s Mystic River.
Other notable credits include Austin Powers: The Spy Who Sh*gged Me (1999), War of the Worlds (2005), and Marjorie Prime (2017).
Robbins more recently returned to the world of Stephen King with a role in Season 2 of the horror anthology TV show, Castle Rock, and revisited themes of isolation as part of the Silo cast for Apple TV+.
Morgan Freeman
Freeman’s Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding was a contraband smuggler who became Andy’s friend.
His role in the film earned Morgan his third of five Oscar nominations.
Some of his other acclaimed post-Shawshank performances include Se7en (1995) Bruce Almighty (2003) and Evan Almighty (2007), as well as in three live-action Batman movies, and narrating the likes of March of the Penguins and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (which also starred Robbins) in 2005.
Freeman recently starred in director Zach Braff’s A Good Person and is set to star in the upcoming Now You See Me 3, reprising Thaddeus Bradley.
Bob Gunton
Gunton played the corrupt sadistic warden, Samuel Norton. Prior to The Shawshank Redemption, Gunton had appearances in Glory (1989) alongside Morgan Freeman, JFK (1991), and Demolition Man (1993). Subsequently he also starred as Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), The Perfect Storm (2000), Fracture (2007), and the Academy Award-winning Argo (2012).
Some of Gunton’s most recent works include Unbroken: Path to Redemption (2018) and the television series Elementary (2019).
William Sadler
Sadler worked on a number of film and television projects during the 1980s before signing on as Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption.
Sadler is arguably best known for his role in Die Hard 2 (1990) as Colonel Stuart outside of his performance in The Shawshank Redemption.
Following the 1994 classic, Sadler went on to appear in dozens of films including Eagle Eye (2008), Iron Man 3 (2013), The Duel (2016), and Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020).
Hadler had also appeared in the original Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) playing the role of Death. He has recently appeared in several television series such as The Flash (2014), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2015-2016), Power (2017-2018), and When They See Us (2019).
Clancy Brown
Often cast as a villainous or authoritative character, Brown played one of Warden Norton’s most brutal guards, Captain Byron Hadley.
Brown continued to work as an onscreen actor and voice actor after The Shawshank Redemption, known for his work as the voice of Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–present) as well as Lex Luthor in the DC Animated Universe (1996–2006). His credits also include Hail, Caeser! (2016), Promising Young Woman (2020), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), and Dumb Money (2023). He also recently featured in Dexter: New Blood, The Crown, and Ashoka.
James Whitmore
As librarian Brooks Hatlen, James Whitmore was the most accomplished actor and versatile entertainer cast in The Shawshank Redemption, having won a Golden Globe, a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Tony, as well as receiving two Academy Award nominations.
He was in dozens of films and television series spanning seven decades from the 1940s to the 2000s, including The Twilight Zone (1963), The Majestic (2001), and CSI (2007). After a historic career in entertainment, James Whitmore died of lung cancer at the age of 87 in 2009.
Mark Rolston
Mark played the rather unsavoury character named Bogs Diamond, who led a group of prison rapists called the Sisters. Mark Rolston made his film debut in James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) and starred in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) and RoboCop 2 (1990).
Post Shawshank, Rolston went onto make appearances in Rush Hour (1998), Midway (2019), and the Academy Award-winning The Departed (2006) as Timothy Delahunt. He also had several notable works in television such as The X-Files, ER, Batman Beyond, NYPD Blue, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 24, Bosch, and Ashoka.
Gil Bellows
Bellows played the affable, but ultimately doomed, Tommy Williams in the movie, in one of the most memorable roles in his career. Following the success of The Shawshank Redemption, Gil Bellows went on to star in Ally McBeal (1997-2002), The Agency (2001-2003), and Eyewitness (2016-2017).
Bellows was also cast in supporting roles in Criminal Minds (2010), Bones (2014), 11.22.63 (2016), The Handmaid’s Tale (2019), and Chucky (2023).
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
