Morgan Freeman seems an unlikely adrenaline junkie. The actor rose to stardom as the sedate chauffeur at the wheel of a 1955 Cadillac in the film Driving Miss Daisy and has carved a niche playing world-weary characters who typically counsel their younger, more impetuous co-stars in films such as The Shawshank Redemption and Se7en.

But get the 70-year-old on the subject of adventure and he is anything but retiring. When not sunning himself on his ranch in Mississippi, he says he can be found cruising the oceans on his yacht, bombing about in his new private aircraft or racing his BMW at high speed. “Not that I should boast about that,” he grins. “Don’t want to get into any more trouble with the authorities.”

He gave up skiing only when he was involved in an accident that almost killed him.

“I don’t think I’d like to live for ever,” he says. “But I would like to live a really, really, really long time. I don’t fear death at all. What I fear is how I die.”

In an age when Hollywood stars are desperate to flag up their environmental credentials, Freeman is refreshingly open about his high-octane hobbies. While a new generation of Hollywood stars boasts of commuting to work in a fuel-efficient Toyota Prius, Freeman admits his form of transport is slightly less green: he regularly makes the 1,800-mile commute from Mississippi to work in Hollywood in his Cessna 414 twin-propeller aircraft, having gained his licence in 2003. “I had my flight training in Clarksdale, near my home, and now I’m highflying,” he says. “I fly from home to Los Angeles at 23,000ft, solo. It’s exhilarating travelling at 270mph and a great way to get to work.

“Flying has always been my greatest passion. Being up in the sky, above everything and looking down on clouds, it’s the best.”

Freeman is also a keen sailor. “The first boat I bought was a Holland-built Holiday 28, but now I have a Shannon 43. It’s one of the 12 best-built boats in the entire world,” he explains. “I mainly sail around the Caribbean but I’ve always been meaning to sail the South Pacific, and I may do it one of these days.

“Sailing is really hard, and you know you’re going to be in harm’s way at some point; you know you’re going to be in massive storms. It’s very exciting, but it’s also really wearing, mentally and physically.”

Freeman was something of a late bloomer, particularly by Hollywood standards, and already in his fifties before he became a household name. He won a state-wide drama competition aged 12 but turned his back on acting – and the offer of a drama scholarship at Jackson State University – to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.

“It took me about 18 months before I lost my romantic notions,” he says of his days in uniform.

“Just when I was getting close to being accepted for pilot training I was allowed to get into a jet airplane and got the distinct impression that I was sitting in the nose of a rocket.

“I realised my fantasies of flying and fighting were just that – fantasies. They had nothing to do with the reality of killing people. What I wanted was the movie version. So that was the whole end of doing anything other than acting for me.”

During the 1960s he worked as a dancer in New York before a few small-fry theatre roles led eventually to a part in the 1968 all-black version of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway. The 1970s brought a regular role on The Electric Company, a popular American children’s television show. It meant a reliable income but he found the monotony of it hard to deal with. “That job literally drove me to drink,” the now teetotal star says. “It was so undemanding. I thought this was all I would ever get.

“I remember waking up once in my doorway, where I had fallen down. And I lay there, thinking, ‘You’re lying face down, drunk. This will never do.’ I was never an alcoholic, but I was a lush.”

Just when he was beginning to despair, the film roles started to trickle in and Freeman gradually built a reputation as a fine supporting actor. But it wasn’t until 1989, starring as chauffeur to Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, that Freeman hit the Hollywood big time. Now, he’s more in demand than ever, currently starring in The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson, which opens in Britain on Friday, and he is soon to be seen in a string of films, including The Code, alongside Antonio Banderas, and Wanted, with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie.

“I just couldn’t get arrested when I was a younger man, and I admit there were times back then I feared I’d be an old man and still never have got to do what I wanted with my life,” he confesses. “But in hindsight, my career probably went just as it should have. Something was protecting me, holding me back, because I think if I’d had wild success in my twenties or thirties I’d have suffered some serious burnout and perhaps wouldn’t even be here today.”

He’s been described as the greatest living American actor but is reluctant to accept such praise: “I’m just glad to be alive. You ought to be glad about your life, whatever it is. I’ve got all my fingers and toes. My eyesight is good. My smeller works. Of course I’m happy about my life, because I’m still here.”

Freeman has nine grandchildren and looks forward to celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary next year with Myrna Colley-Lee, his second wife. “I’ve got a pretty nice life these days,” he says. “I have a great career, a great wife and great kids. I’m not struggling up any hills. I’m on a comfortable plateau.”

He chuckles sagely to himself. “Now I’ve reached retirement age, it seems Hollywood won’t let me retire.”

My stuff...

On my CD player

I grew up with the blues. I especially enjoy anything by John Lee Hooker. And Duke Ellington. I plan on playing him next year so I’ve been catching up

In my parking space

A Cessna 414, below

On my DVD player

Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales. Growing up, my favourite movies were anything to do with flying, which explains why I joined the air force at 18. Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and William Powell were my heroes. I also enjoyed Moulin Rouge

I will never throw away My pilot’s licence. I had it taken away briefly once so now I’m being careful to hang on to it