Morgan Freeman, along with black background characters, was blind casted into his role as Red. While he seems perfect for the character and does an amazing job as an actor; the role was technically for a ginger-headed white man. The character in the original novel is an Irishman with ginger hair, which still comes up in the movie (as seen in the clip above). Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins share a few lines when their characters initially meet where Robbins asks Freeman's character why they call him Red, to which he answers that it is due to his Irish ethnicity. This line could either be a joke thrown to those who have read the novel, or a simple showing of how the role was blind casted. While it doesn't pose any obvious issues in the film, there are some real-life occurrences and issues that were not shown in the film or addressed; such as prevalent racism in the late 1940s, when the film takes place. This is a potentially problematic practice since blind-casting does not allow the film to be adjusted to address race and racial issues.