Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas Talk ‘Morris From America’Posted by Wilson Morales
August 17, 2016
Hitting theaters this week from A24 is their upcoming film, ‘Morris From America’ directed by Chad Hartigan and starring newcomer Markees Christmas, Craig Robinson, Carla Juri, and Lina Keller.
The film made its World Premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screening Award and Special Jury Prize for Craig Robinson’s performance.
Morris Gentry (Markees Christmas) is a 13-year-old, overweight, African-American boy who fancies himself the next Notorious B.I.G. He’s entering puberty, self-conscious, and new to living in Heidelberg, Germany, where nobody else looks or acts like him. His single father Curtis (Craig Robertson) is better at relating to Morris as a friend than a father, bonding with his son over their shared love of music. Initially, Morris only interacts with Curtis and Inka (Carla Juri), his kind – if naïve – German language tutor, but when forced to attend summer classes at a youth center, he instantly falls in love. 15-year-old Katrin (Lina Keller) is just the girl for Morris: rebellious, cool as ice, and not as indifferent toward him as the other kids.
As the two begin to develop a slow friendship (albeit one that Morris hopes will be the start of something deeper), Morris drifts further from Curtis, who is having a hard time of his own adjusting to his son’s burgeoning adolescence. In the wake of these changing relationships, Morris risks everything in a journey far outside of his comfort zone toward self-confidence and acceptance in this new, foreign environment.
Blackfilm.com recently spoke with Robinson and Christmas regarding their roles and Robinson’s transition to the drama side for a change.
Craig, you’re mostly known for most doing comedies, how did you get involved with the film?
Craig Robinson: My agent and Chad Hartigan, the director, are from the same agency. My agent got hold of the script and liked the part for me. Then they reached out to Chad’s people. Chad ended up talking to David Gordon Green, who directed Pineapple Express. He did some research and asked David, “Do you think Robinson can do drama?” And David said, according to Chad, “Craig Robinson can do anything. He’s just afraid of small spaces.” That’s true. Chad and I then met and we talked about it. I liked the script a lot. I related to the character. I felt the character talked a lot like me. I loved the story between father and son and the bond between them. We ended up agreeing to doing the movie together and that’s how it happened.
Markees, how was doing the your first film and being in a lead role?
Markees Christmas: It was great. I got to go to Germany. I got to see a whole new side of the world. I got to see how a movie is made. I just had the time of my life making this movie.
Can you talk life imitating art with this film. After all, you are a Black guy going and living in Germany…at least for the film?
MC: I really felt like Morris the whole time I was there. I felt like I was in character the whole time. Everything that happened to me offscreen really happened to me onscreen. It was crazy. It was like deja vu once we started shooting scenes. It was beautiful. I loved Germany. I liked being in that area, Heidelberg. As far as Berlin, that’s a different story.
As I mentioned before, this role is a departure from other roles you have had. Can you talk about playing a single Black dad raising a kid in Germany?
CR: Playing a single dad is really walkabout fatherhood. The relationship that they have and he has his son there and they are both a fish out of water. He knows that his son has to deal being in Germany. His son has to deal with the loss of his mother, who was the love of my life He knows his son is on the verge of becoming a man. The kid is not ready for any of the experience that he’s experiencing but he has to face them head on. My job is to be there for him every step of the way, even when he thinks I’m not. In preparing for that, I drew on my character a lot because there was a good cop, bad cop going on in my personal life. My father was a iron fist kind of guy and my mother was the ultimate sweetheart. I loved the way Chad wrote my character. There’s moment in the film where Morris curses at his father and Curtis is annoyed that he waited up for him. Curtis didn’t let the curses get to him because he was like, “You chill. I chill.” There was a bigger moment where Curtis was like, “Look, I need you to check in because I love you. I care for you and we are in this together. I need to know that you are all right.”
With the rap scenes, who wrote the lyrics?
MC: So, with the horrible lyrics in the film where my character gets kicked out of class, those were written by Chad. He actually wrote those when he was younger.
CR: When he was 12. He really got in trouble for that because they were explicit.
Craig, was it easy for you to do the rap part as Curtis?
CR: I think he said he could freestyle. Curtis could rap like everybody else. He and his friends would battle rap and stuff and I think Curtis might have been okay at it and that’s why he encourages Morris to do rap and to do it in his own voice. I don’t think he was cut out to be a rapper.
Markees, what’s the one thing you can take from doing this movie?
MC: Never fall in love at 13. I’ll never curse at my dad even though I didn’t get in trouble for it in the movie. I learned a lot. Not to trust too many people.
Craig, how are you balancing your schedules between films and TV?
CR: My team are very aware of where I need to be and when, so I rely on them for that. To pay attention to the schedule and there’s also the live comedy dates that I do. It’s more about being in communication with them and making sure that we are all on the same page.
A role like this can take you places in your career. Is this a direction that you want to go to now?
CR: I appreciate that. I’m looking forward to going deeper, whether it be comedy or drama. You can’t have one without the other really. I definitely want to go deeper and sink my teeth into more projects. It’s fun and it’s good for the soul.
With other films coming during the same week and films already in theaters, what’s a good reason to see Morris From America?
CR: Morris From America is about coming together as family. It’s about lifting each other up. We’re all in the same boat. At times, there’s a lot of finger pointing and name calling as people are trying to make a point about whatever the point is, but you already turned somebody off before you made your point. So it’s hard to listen because you already called me stupid or ugly or whatever. I think that the relationship that Curtis and Morris have is great because they talk about the bigger issues and not the childish ones.
