Morgan Freeman's Real-Life "Bucket List"

Morgan Freeman is back on the silver screen, starring with Jack Nicholson in the movie, "The Bucket List."

The two play an unlikely duo of terminally ill cancer patients who decide to create a "bucket list" of the things they'd like to do before they "kick the bucket" -- then start trying to really do the things on the list.

But, does the actor have one off-screen? Or has he done all the things he's always wanted to do?

"Just about all of them," he responded when co-anchor Harry Smith posed the question on The Early ShowThursday.

"I think we all -- everybody has a bucket list. You know?" Freeman continued. "You know, you don't write it down necessarily, but there it is. You have one."

Smith noted that "Bucket List" is a Rob Reiner film, and that Reiner "likes movies that have heart, that have soul, a serious story line."

Freeman told Smith working with Nicholson and Reiner was a "dream come true. I've always wanted to work with Jack. I always wanted to work with Rob, from the time he started directing; this was some time ago. And the chemistry in that situation is amazing. It's really, really, really good."

Nicholson, Freeman observed, is "a marvel to work with. He's such a professional. Obviously. You don't get to be Jack Nicholson just fooling around.

"He's very serious. He's a writer. He's a script tinkerer. He comes up with all these great lines and all this cool stuff."

Getting to do a film with Nicholson, Freeman says, was "terrific. Every day was magic."

Smith remarked to Freeman that, even though Nicholson and Freeman get equal billing, "The Bucket List" "is, in a lot of ways, your movie. It seems like to me your character is the one with the gravity. Yours is the one that has -- is really the one who has the more interesting journey, at least, until the final scenes."

"Well, all right," Freeman responded, "but that's subjective, Harry. I think. Yeah, my character is, I suppose, more soulful. You know, married guy, kids, job."

"And a life unfulfilled," Smith interjected.

"And a life unfulfilled," Freeman agreed. "I think both of us (his and Nicholson's characters) are trapped in that world. We're both terrifically unfulfilled in that way."