Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas talk making the crowd-pleasing, fish-out-of-water tale, Morris from America.
Hartigan takes such a simple premise and makes you really like and root for Morris.
Den of Geek: Chad, this seems different from your earlier movie,My Name is Martin Bonner.
What got you started writing about this kid in Germany living with his single father?
Chad Hartigan: It started from an autobiographical place.
One of them is him slow-dancing with the pillow.
Thats something that I really did, so I just started compiling little things from my own life.
Markees, how did you find out about the movie?
Im guessing you didnt have an agent when the movie was being made since its your first movie.
What made you want to be in a movie like this where you literally have to carry it?
Hartigan:He had done some skits.
Christmas:YouTube stuff.
That stuff I was doing wasnt for money.
Any movie just really had me excited.
Was Craig already attached?
How did you pair them up?
Hartigan:No, Markees was onboard before Craig was.
When I was writing it, I was thinking about Questlove from the Roots.
Thats who I was picturing, so I think we first offered it to him.
I dont know if he even read it but his team was like, He doesnt do movies.
You typically just have to offer it to them.
I didnt know he could do the German lines and this big monologue?
Markees, did you know any of Craigs work beforehand?
Hes done everything fromThe Officeand R-rated movies that you probably shouldnt have seen but probably did anyway.
I basically turned into a fanboy.
I started watching every movie that I didnt watch.
I had already watched bothHot Tubs, I watchedPineapple Express.
What else did I watch?
I watchedThis is the EndandMeet the Peebles, the Tyler Perry movie.
I just started watching Craigs stuff.
What was your first meeting with Craig like?
Christmas:I met him at his management office and we kind of clicked there.
Me and Craig just hit it off as soon as we met each other.
Christmas:Yeah, hes cool.
Craigs not your cliche movie star.
Hes not an actor youd expect to play a father either and this might be his first time.
Did you guys have a lot of time to rehears together?
I do remember Markees and I laughing a lot.
When we first heard him deliver some of the lines, it was hard not to laugh.
Hes exactly how he is.
Hartigan:It was very encouraging.
This is gonna be great!
They just had the rapport down.
I think the script was good enough that they didnt have to improvise anything.
They could just say what was written, and it came out being really good, natural banter.
Was this just another script that showed up or something you had to pursue?
I loved him instantly.
He didnt think I loved him.
He didnt even think the meeting went well, but we ended up doing it.
I think Chad mentioned that some of the stuff that happened to Morris came from his real life.
Did the script change a lot when you came on board?
He even mentioned that he used to write bad rap.
or hell share, When I was a kid, this is what went on…
Even the reason we shot it in Germany was cause he grew up in another country.
What was your impression of the script?
The first thing that stuck out to me was the way the character talked was like I talked.
There was a certain rhythm and vernacular, and I was like, This is how I talk.
This is natural for me to say these words.
And then the relationship between Morris and Curtis, I thought was something I hadnt seen.
It was special and him toeing the line between father and friendship, which is kind of taboo.
Morris seems to get a lot of leeway and is left alone more than you might expected.
Is that just because his father is so busy working?
Hes busy and they just have different schedules, so hes busy and he has to go away.
Its the situation they find themselves in.
Everything came from the script.
We followed the script to aT.
Nah, nah, because it was all about getting those words out.
What was your first meeting with Markees like?
He seems like a pretty smart kid.
It was like, This is my little brother right here.
So we were fast homies.
Was it really evident that he was a fan of yours or was it pretty mutual?
We cool and stuff, but he was a little pro by the third week in.
Did you have any downtime once you got to Germany to look around?
I had a little bit of downtime.
I went to the Heidelburg Castle, a 1200-year-old castle, looked around.
I wanted to see the part where they tortured people but it was cool, though.
Had you been to Germany before that?
You also had to learn German for this, not a lot of it but enough.
Was that hard to do?
Not sure how you are with languages.
She helped me out with the pronunciation, and then I just practiced all the time.
Not even a little bit.
If I do it, its because were joking.
I was shouting at the players in German, Get the ball or whatever.
Had you been there before?
How were your experiences in Germany, Markees?
I assume that was your first time there.
Christmas:Yeah, it was my first time there, my first time on a plane.
Theres always that bad feeling you get after you hop off the plane and your ears stop popping.
When I first got there, I didnt like it.
I was like, This place gives me bad vibes.
After that day, I just had fun for the rest of the summer.
The weekends, I just didnt want to stop working, thats just where it was at.
Thats what I like to do for fun.
Lets talk about the rest of the cast.
How about casting Katrin as Morris love interest?
Was she already an actor?
Can you talk about your female co-stars?
Did you get to spend time with them beforehand rehearsing?
We couldnt communicate as well as we should have been, cause her accent was kind of thick.
Her problem listening to me was I kept using slang, so it was kind of throwing her off.
She was like, What?
What did you say?
We hunt out a lot more in Berlin.
Hartigan:I think you got rehearse one time with Carla.
Christmas:Oh, yeah.
We got to rehearse with Carla.
It would seem like all those factors would help the movie.
You couldnt talk to Lina so that added to that relationship.
Hartigan:I think a successful movie has a large portion of luck.
Christmas:I mean, Lina was kind of hot but not my throw in of hot.
Morris from Americais now playing in select cities and on DirecTV.
