Fresh off his surprise Emmy Award win for Season 5 of Fargo, actor and comedian Lamorne Morris joins this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast to break down his scene-stealing performance as the “elder statesman” of the original SNL cast in Jason Reitman’s new film Saturday Night.
Morris, who portrays Garrett Morris (no relation) in the movie, discusses what it was like to enter the fictionalized world of SNL more than a decade after he auditioned for the show (and didn’t get it). He also reveals how his New Girl character Winston’s “kind eyes” helped land him his Emmy-winning role on Fargo, tells the full story about how he almost missed out on the sitcom that has defined his career to date, and explains his running joke with New Girl castmate Jake Johnson about a potential reunion.
When Lamorne Morris got the email from his agent about an audition for the role of Garrett Morris in Saturday Night, he immediately replied, “Oh, this is great, I’m going to put this on tape right now. I mean, he is my grandfather.”
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Despite ongoing jokes about their shared last name, the 41-year-old Lamorne is not actually related to Garrett, 87. But the actor did feel such a strong connection to the original Not Ready for Prime Time Player that he considered the part his to lose.
“If I didn’t at least get a callback for this, the system is rigged,” he says. “If they give this to Lakeith Stanfield, then I know something’s off.”
Once he got the role, Lamorne was eager to sit down with the man he had idolized as a kid—not for his SNL work, but rather for his roles on ’90s sitcoms like Martin and The Jamie Foxx Show—but Reitman “cautioned” the cast against meeting their real-life counterparts. “But I knew I knew what my process was, and in order to do it justice, I needed to speak to the man himself and see what exactly he was feeling, if his thoughts were true to what the script was telling me was happening,” Lamorne says. “And I’m glad I did, because he had a lot of insight and a lot of nuance into what the script had.”
Garrett Morris told Lamorne that just like in Reitman and Gil Kenan’s script, he “felt like a fish out of water” at SNL in 1975. “He was in this cast of young, funny white kids, and he’s 38 years old, helped desegregate the unions as part of the Civil Rights movement. This man’s like, what am I doing here?” Lamorne explains.
Now that Garrett has seen the finished film and said he “loved” it, Lamorne can finally relax. “That’s all I wanted,” he says. “At the end of the day, if I’m making a sculpture of you and the world hates it, but you love it, then I’ve won. This is my love letter to Garrett and he enjoyed it so I’m happy.”
Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing by following The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
I don’t think I realized until watching the film how much older [Garrett Morris] was than the rest of the original cast. And you’re a bit older than your co-stars as well. So were you able to relate to that dynamic at all?
Yeah, absolutely. But this group man, after watching them, after being around them, they are not like most young actors. They are so professional, so good at what they do. So I got optimistic about the future of our business, because if that’s the future of our business, we’re good. Every one of these actors is capable of leading their own franchise, their own films, their own Broadway productions. So, although I did feel like the elder statesman at times, there were moments where I was learning from them. I’m learning from their off-camera habits. What are they doing when they're on their downtime? They’re not going out, they’re not partying. They’re in the gym. They’re writing. In the case of Rachel Sennott, she’s developing a show.
Unlike the habits of the actual people that you all are playing in the film?
Oh, yeah, they were just doing cocaine all day.
Well, you and I are right about the same age, so neither of us were around in 1975 when the first season of SNL premiered. But I’m curious about what your relationship to the show has been like? For anyone who does comedy, and performs at Second City like you did, SNL is that thing that’s always on the horizon, that you think about as a possibility. Was it something that you were pursuing at one point? And did you actually get to audition?
Yeah, back in 2011, or it might have been 2010, my manager at the time represented a few actors on the show, so she said, they’re looking for the new cast, send in a tape. So I put some characters on tape, sent it in. They then asked me to do another tape, but to add political characters, or something like that. Then it must have been dogs–t, because I haven't heard back since!
Did you have an Obama impression in your repertoire at that point?
I want to say I did Obama and a really s---tty Bill Clinton. But then I got New Girl the same year, so you know, look at life. And here I am in the SNL movie. So things happen the way they're supposed to happen.
Of course, New Girl almost didn’t happen for you either because you ended up joining that show in its second episode after the pilot had already been made with another actor, right?
Well, there was a long process leading up to that, too. I auditioned a few times. They found Damon Wayans Jr. but they didn’t think he would be available because he had his show, Happy Endings, which ended up getting picked up for a second season, so he can’t stay on New Girl. So after the pilot he leaves, and now they have this vacant spot. So I technically didn't replace Damon, because he’s Coach, and I play Winston. People think oh, one Black guy replaced another Black guy. That’s not what happened. They were seeing all ethnicities for Winston. So it just happened to be that they picked me. They were familiar with me, and they liked what I was doing, and then the rest is history.
Did you appreciate that it wasn't like, we’re looking for a Black actor for this role, that it was just a character who anyone could play?
Yeah, I was proud of them for that. It feels good to me knowing that, you know, a lot of times we try to place certain groups of people in certain categories. Oh, that person’s a great Asian actor. No, that person’s a great actor. We don't hear people say that person’s a great white actor. No, they say that person’s a great actor. So I’m just happy that it was open to all ethnicities and I still got the part.
Yeah, and it relates to the Garrett Morris thing, too, because I think he felt like he was put in certain roles at SNL, at the beginning at least, that were more about his race than they were about his abilities.
Right, exactly, 100%. And that’s something all actors deal with and people in all professions. It’s not always coming from a place of malice with folks. A lot of times it’s coming from a place of over-correction, or a place of ignorance. I mean, back in the day, it was coming from a place of malice. But nowadays it’s not. People are trying to understand. And maybe they’re trying to understand too much, where it should just be, no, we’re just actors. Let’s just do the thing. Yes, I am Black, by the way, but I don’t lead with that. Like, “Hey guys, I’m Black Lamorne.”
On the red carpet for the Emmys, I saw you joked that Jake Johnson is the only thing standing in the way of a New Girl reunion? At least, I think that was a joke, but is there any truth to that?
No, no, no truth to that. Jake is not standing in the way. I think he’d be happy to do it. But we just like giving each other a hard time. He blames me for it. He did a show at a college, him and Max [Greenfield], they did a show together and blamed me. So then I started getting all these messages from fans like, “Why are you holding up the show?!” I mean, people were getting so rude. They’re like, “You’re not even the funniest person!” It’s not real! So now I just give them a hard time about it, too.
Listen to the episode now and follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
