Lamorne Morris spoke about his experience playing the only Black lead character on the hit ’10s show New Girl.
Lamorne played Winston Bishop, who was added to the show after Damon Wayans Jr. — who played Coach in the pilot — couldn’t commit to the show once it was picked up for a full season due to scheduling issues (though his character would later return).
Lamorne spoke to Entertainment Weekly about relating to Garrett Morris, the first Black SNL comedian who he plays in the new biopic Saturday Night. He explained, “Being in New Girl, I was a new character after the first episode, so a lot of time was spent trying to develop my character and figure out who I was on the fly.”
He continued, “Even though it’s not personal, sometimes you take it personal, and you’re like, ‘What the hell, man? I’m the one Black character on this show, and they don’t know how to figure out my character. He ain’t got no job. Is that the storyline now?'”
“I had a lot of those thoughts, even though now looking back, it wasn’t personal,” he added. “It’s not easy to develop characters for a television series. And so kudos to the writers for figuring it out and really sticking with me because there were days where I felt like I’m going to get fired.”
Beyond New Girl, Lamorne continued, “A lot of times you work on a project where you are the only Black character, but then you look around, there’s also no Black crew members, so sometimes you’re like, ‘What age are we living in? What is happening over here?'”
“There’s 100-something people y’all hired, and ain’t nobody Black but me!” He added, “I don’t want to say it’s nefarious. But I am saying I notice it because when you tell a Black joke and you look for somebody to be like, ‘Yeah, I get it,’ but you don’t get that.”
You can read the full interview here.
Do you have a favorite Winston scene on New Girl? Tell us about it in the comments.
