Morgan Freeman has led all 3 branches of government on screen

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

We pledge allegiance to Morgan Freeman.

The Oscar-winning actor has long had legions of devoted fans, but now he deserves a patriotic salute, too.

With his role as chief justice of the Supreme Court in Sunday’s Season 2 premiere of Madam Secretary (CBS, 8 p.m. ET/PT), Freeman now has portrayed a top leader in all three branches of the U.S. government.

His governmental acting coup started with 1998’s Deep Impact, in which he played President Beck. He was a Congressional leader, Speaker of the House Trumbull, in 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen and he reprises that role in the upcoming London Has Fallen.

“That was a first,” Freeman says of heading the Supreme Court, a role he took on for an episode he directed. “I have played a criminal court judge" (in 1990's Bonfire of the Vanities).

Just so the other half of Congress doesn’t feel left out, the actor plays a senator in Momentum, which comes out this month. And he’s frequently played military authorities, including Gen. Billy Ford in 1995’s Outbreak, Col. Abraham Curtis in 2003’sDreamcatcher and Sgt. Major John Rawlins in 1989’s Glory.

If you want to go beyond U.S. borders, Freeman depicted South African president Nelson Mandela, a man of immense moral authority, in 2009’sInvictus. He's even played the supreme authority, God, in 2003’sBruce Almighty and 2007’sEvan Almighty.

Téa Leoni, who plays secretary of State Elizabeth McCord in Secretary, felt Freeman’s power when she played a reporter who has a confrontation with President Beck in Deep Impact.

“He came right up and looked me in the eye and said, ‘You’re not going to do this.’ I could feel the strength and cockiness drain out of my body, like blood out of my feet,” she recalls.

That authority comes through in real life, as when Freeman directed the Secretary episode.

“Everyone is waiting for whatever he’s going to say. People are not their cellphones. It’s all hands on deck when Morgan is on set,” says Lori McCreary, Freeman’s producing partner and a fellow Secretary executive producer.

However, Freeman, who has a deep, distinctive voice, also has a practical joker side that helps dissolve any feelings of awe in those around him.

When “a new crew member comes up and shakes his hand, he’ll take his hand away and say, ‘Don’t ever touch me again.’ There’s, like, a 10-second silence on set and then he’ll laugh and crack up and take the guy’s hand and shake it,” McCreary says. “He knows people are looking at him as a man with gravitas. And he knows he’s just Morgan Freeman.”

Of course, Freeman has played many memorable characters who live outside the corridors of power, including convict Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding in 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and former boxer Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris in 2004’s Million Dollar Baby, for which he won an Oscar for supporting actor.

“Driven to it, I can inhabit different characters, just from the inside,” Freeman says of his acting ability. “I don’t think it’s something to brag about. It’s like having one leg shorter than the other. That’s just the way it is.”