Lamorne Morris

has called the greatest TV character of all time. I played Winston Bishop on New Girl. Hello, dear listeners, welcome back to Off the Beat. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. I'm so glad you decided to join me today because, my friends, I am so excited about today's guests. If you didn't catch him in Desperadoes or Woke, you might know him as New Girls prankster Extraordinary. That's right. There really is nobody like Winston Bishop, a k a. The

unbelievably talented Lamourne Morris. Now, I have to tell you something. I spent this conversation with Lamourne smiling the entire time. When we were done, my cheekbones were hurting from smiling so much. Now. Just like his character, Lamourne grew up in Winston's hometown of Chicago, eventually making his way to

Second City, the Second City Training Center. He is such a natural comedian and he has just some really amazing stories, from his early days working in commercials to getting cast on New Girl after Get This fifth teen auditions, by the way, I only had one for Kevin Malone. He has commitment. I have luck. Today you're gonna hear some of these stories, and you'll also hear his shocking revelation about cats. Get Ready, without further ado, please welcome my

new friend and yours, Lamourne Morris, Bubble and Squeak. I love it Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker cooking at every month left over from the Natbyfore, what's up? What's that? Dude? I'm good, right, good, good, good man. Oh my gosh, I'm such a big fan of yours. Thank you so much for coming on the show here to be very excited to have you. I hear that. Uh, well, you're you're encroaching on my space now you're in the podcast business yourself? Is that right? This is correct. We over

at the New Girl headquarters. We were like, we get all these messages from fans constantly and asking questions constantly, and I find myself seeing the show being rewatched all the time with Netflix and Hulu and whoever is purchasing and buying, and we just thought, man, let's do it. And then and I didn't know it was the thing until I saw you do it, and until I saw the office lady's doing it. I saw you know, I was like, holy crap, scrub guys. I said, man, it's like,

this is awesome. I didn't know I could do that. You you can, and you guys are doing it so well. I want to talk about that in a little bit, but I want to go back to the beginning. You grew up in Chicago, right, Yeah, I grew up in Chicago, Uh, South Side of Chicago. Then you know, move moved my way around a little bit, so South Side of Chicago then West Bourbs of Chicago. That's kind of where I figured out my sense of humor and things that I love to do is just having like the best and

worst of both worlds. But you stayed true to your South Side roots. You're a big white Sox fan. I understand White Sox. Yes, you know, I wouldn't say big White Sox fan. I I there are five world series. I do want to take full responsibility for that. I was. My first ever TV commercial was a White Sox commercial. And the year they won, yeah, yeah, the year they won, and I know it was because of me. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give any love to any of

the players. Let's just be honest. They didn't do it. They didn't do it before I did the commercial, they didn't do it after. No, just only the year that you you were advertising for them, working for them, exactly, you were a part of exactly. And I've been trying to let other sports organizations know that. You know, hey, I'm a good luck chall you know, give me courtside seeds, let me do the commercials, and I promise you a championship.

All right. Back to your your childhood in Chicago, first job working for the White Sox in a way, what made you interested in theater or in comedy and how early did that start for you. There's a couple of a couple of things, you know. It could have been something passed down through generations. My mom was very funny. I didn't really follow that itch, but she did some theater back in the day. She writes poetry, so she writes she's very My mom was a very creative person,

but never really followed that that passion. I met my grandfather for the for the first time when I was playing, like ten years ago. Meeting him was so interesting. I moved to California. He lived in California and he was half blind, you know, tiny man sitting in front of his small TV and he was watching the Dodgers game. And I said, oh, you like baseball, and he's got one eye like this, and he goes, he goes, yeah, but me can only watch half the game. And then

he stares at me like this. I thought, oh, half the game because he's got one eye. And I said, oh, that's pretty funny. And then the rest of the day was just preceded by so many jokes, like dad jokes, funny jokes, and talking like sharp jokes. And then it started to hit me like, man, that maybe that maybe passed down. You know, I got a very funny family, you know, an island family from from Belize. So I always had it in me to perform when I was a kid, I used to mock the preacher at church,

you know what I mean. And I didn't know why, but I would just mimic him all the time. And I played basketball growing up, and once I got cut from the basketball team is when I realized, Okay, one, I'm not as good as I thought I was, but two, I need to fill this void with something. And so there are auditions for theater and choir, and so I auditioned for both, got in and fell in love with it immediately, and I couldn't like stop doing it, and I just thought it was like something I was doing

in the meantime. I didn't really truly realize that I could make a career out of it until I was sent to detention one too many times and the woman in detention said, hey, you should really figure out which want to do after you graduate and kind of harness this energy that you have, and so she gave me a pamphlet for Second City. Once that happened, it was like, oh boy, this is this is it for me? You know. I started doing theater and college and Second City at

the same time, and I was addicted to it. I would literally go wait tables for just enough money for food and for train fare just to get tech the city back to the Bourbs and move around like that. And I fell in love with it. You know, that's that's gotta be. Where it started. It was always in me, but once I was left with no other options, and it was kind of like, I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. It was almost the same as I got so broke in l A. I was auditioning, but I

wasn't looking anything, and I didn't know why. I thought I was pretty talented, said man, you know, I was in Second City and I did all these things, and I was like, man, I can't get a job to save my life. And I was running late for an audition. I was so late, car was reboked. I borrowed a friend's car. I get there and I was forced to improvise, like I just made it up. I didn't read the script the sides at all. I get in there and

they said, did you read the side? I say, yeah, yeah, yea, yeah, sure. I just kind of glanced around, and once I made everything up. I guess it was refreshing to them that day because everyone was just sticking to the script. And they booked me on the spot, I just said, man, you gotta trust your instincts and go with your skill set, go with the thing that you train doing and you're passionate about doing, which was in profit time, and I was left with no choice. And how was it? Wow?

So much of what you just said is fascinating to me. My entree, I guess into performing into theater specifically for me, was very much the same. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That was what I was gonna do. So for you, it was basketball. I had an injury. This was a very long story, but basically I was left a very active kid who didn't have a place to put his focus and found theater and much the same as well. I didn't see it as a career.

I saw it as something that I was doing. A very smart guidance counselor gave you a pamphlet to Second City that so did you? You started taking classes there? Is that how it started for you at Second City? Yeah? I started taking classes there. They had a program called

brown co. I remember Second City there was an initiative I want to say, Keegan Michael Key started this initiative with homanym Diana Griffin out in Detroit, Second City, Detroit, where to get more black audience members, black and brown audience members, because there were none. And it was like, well, why are there none? It's like, well, because there no black and brown performers, and so we're like oh. I was like, oh, let's let's go. Let's go and let's

open the doors. Let's go figure out where where real these folks are. And so they started scouting, going to colleges. You know, I was doing this um this comedy group with a guy named Chris Woski, and we were in this group and he blew my mind with how he was performing, and I just thought, man, this is amazing. Like let's just go big and go broad and just get weird on stage. And so I started doing that and I really found my niche for sketch comedy. They had come to see me perform and asked me to

come audition. That was how it worked out for me. I already knew I wanted to go there, you know, I knew that was going to be the trajectory, but I was, you know it. It helped that they paid for me to go. I got a scholarship there. Otherwise I couldn't afford it. Wow, So for you was it? Was it improv like? That? Was it? It was making

people laugh performing in that way at the time. Yeah, at the time, you know, even though I even though at the same time I was studying was studying traditional acting, different techniques in theater school. You know, how to break down a character, how to analyze the script, those types of things. I was doing a ton of that, a lot of scene work. But there was something about just showing up and not knowing what the hell is gonna happen and using your instincts with your friends on stage

that sat with me a lot more. And then it's a very useful tool obviously when you know, you know, when you're on set, you gotta make stuff up from time to down. You know what I mean? Uh, you save the writer or save yourself? Yes, no, I understand exactly. So what made you move to Los Angeles? Did you stay and try to work in Chicago? Obviously you booked up a White Sox commercial, So did you start working

professionally in Chicago? I started working professional in Chicago. I did a couple of commercials, actually did two White Sox commercials. The first one was the baseball and it was me and the first baseman, Paul Knirko, and then the second one was at McDonald's White Sox and Cubs commercial with Bobby Jenks and Rob Belushi. So it was it was a pretty fun time on set for those spots. But then in Chicago, the opportunities aren't as I'm not sure how they are now, but back then it was just

commercial work. You know, it'd be rare if you got a movie or a TV opportunity there, but it's just commercial work. B Et came to town, you know, looking for on air personalities, and I didn't really know what that was, to be quite honest with you, I just knew, oh, this could be the thing. This is it's TV and there it's a TV host. I guess that's kind of the same thing as acting, is it. I had no idea. I had no idea. I just gave it a shot.

All my friends auditioned for it. I auditioned, and I booked it, and I had to move to New York. This is hot wired. This is hot wired. Yeah, And I got to have some fun with that because the head of BT at the time was a guy named Reginald Hudland. Reginald Hudland. For folks out there who might not know, his college thesis project was House Party. So he made that movie in college, and you know, and he's a second city guy, producer, director, want a Family,

Django producing, He's he's awesome guy. But he understood my sense of humor the moment I showed up and gave me a job there and wanted me to be myself and be silly and be weird. So I was hosting for a while and then I just you know, I was missing out on a lot of acting opportunities, so I moved to l A, which was a weird transition, going straight from hosting to quit and cold turkey and trying to dive into traditional you know, how do I get an agent? How do I you know, I haven't

acted in a while. What do I do? What's the process? Like, I'm in a whole new there's marijuana out here? How what do I do about this marijuana that's here? I can't stop, I can't. It was a lot of stuff going on that that made it difficult for me to get a job. Yeah, both internal and external. Oh yeah, exactly. And that's why I made that move. That's why I

made that transition. But that takes balls, right. I mean, like you have a job, Bob, You're working in entertainment, you're hosting, but you just want you wanted to pursue more traditional acting, character creation, improv and you just a was the place you needed to be. And I think back then it was it was the place. You know. Obviously nowadays, you know, once the pandemic happened to open their eyes to a lot of things. People are moving,

people are leaving l A constantly. I mean, I'm still here, but you know, back then, it was like if you want to act, if you want to you know, do it full time. This is the place you have to be. This is where the best of the best is. This is where the opportunities are. And it was difficult, to

be quite honest with you, it was really difficult. I would drive my friends to auditions sometimes at big studios, and I would drop them off and I would kind of just linger around the studio, just kind of going, this is crazy to me, Like this is you know, walking around a lot without a pass, you know, looking at look at that other actors driving pass on golf cards, going, man, you got a golf cart. Too, like, this is crazy. I fell in love with the magic of it. There's

still something very magical about it. And I just knew. I just said, man, I can't leave until I can't leave until I'm on a golf cart, until you have your own golf cart exactly. So you were doing commercials too, right, You had quite a bit of success in commercials when you moved to l A. Oh yeah again. The start of it in l A was that audition, and I got lucky because that casting director kept calling me in for things after that, and it was such a blessing

to my life. I mean, I went from having negative eleven dollars in my bank account to looking like seven that week, and you know, traveling internationally for commercials, getting commercial offers. I was like, this is crazy to me. That kind of resparked my faith in myself. You lose a lot of steam, you lose a lot of faith in yourself and your ability, and you get down on yourself and you're not working and it's um and it still happens, you know what I mean, still happens now,

you know what I mean. They're like, damn, you know, I miss out in certain jobs or it goes a while without working, and back then I was really really low on myself and it couldn't have come at a better time in my life. I want to say, I don't know how many commercials I've done in that year. It was a ridiculous amount. He got to the point where if I was walking down the street, people would go, how do man, I know you? From? Uh TwixT? Was no, no, no,

all of them, all of them. It was all those commercials. A friend told me a story about Keenan every wayains did Damon told me. They think either Damon Wayne's Jr. Told me the story or Marlon I forget. Someone told me the story where Keenan was watching some sports game or whatever, some football game or something, and then a commercial I come on. He said, damn this that this dude is on every commercial. And then the next commercial that popped up was a different commercial that I was in.

Said that he threw his will control the TV. I don't know how true that is, but I just remember hearing that. It would be so excited that keen and every way and to knew who I was, even if he hated me, even if he was annoyed. But yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, commercials, So when you're starting out, I mean, especially back then, you could make some real money and keep your career going and like you said, get some confidence and also get some experience on set, right, Because sure,

you could say live shows are more difficult. It's you know, there's more pressure you're on stage. But you know, I've talked about this with a lot of people, but it's worth at least to me saying again how difficult that experience is on set of a movie, of a TV show, of a commercial, that experience of shooting something experience is so important, right, Oh, yeah, absolutely, you know the basics.

I've been on set with people who are just who are really talented, but this is their first project, you know, and they couldn't hit their mark to save their lives. They don't understand how to take direction a note from a director. I don't understand how fast pace we're moving there. There's a lot of things that you just get innately when you're doing You do so many commercials, and you when you finally get that opportunity, you're you're used to it.

You're used to a hundred people running around, you, used to putting makeup on your face constantly and doing touch ups and all this stuff where you're trying to think of your lines and it becomes a muscle. You become so used to it, you know what I mean. It got to the point now, it got to the point.

I remember being a new girl and you'll be talking to your same partner in between takes or maybe running lines, and there's so many people touching you that you have know just someone someone literally has their hands in your pants, you're not face and sometimes different people a person and the sound person coming in one angle and going down the other angle exactly, and Jake Johnson that I think it was, wasn't Max with Jake, can't forget who was.

We would walk up behind that part, we put our hands behind their in their pants too, and see if they noticed it. And they never would it never would. It just started like literally playing with the butt cheeks and they're just like, doesn't they have no idea who's playing with the butt cheeks right now? But that's something you gotta get used to. That's something that that happens. You know, it could throw you could be very jarring

if you your first day on set. That's true, speaking of a new girl, I have been told you auditioned many times fifteen? Is that correct? Yeah? I could be off by one maybe maybe maybe before fourteen or sixteen it was. I think it was three or four times for the Coach character and then the rest for the Winston character. It was a grueling process. It's a story that you could write about when you're teaching people, how the process goes, and how unpredictable it is, and how

there's no one way to get a job. I went. I auditioned for the Coach character, like a lot of the other actors did, didn't book it. In fact, I think my audition was so weird to them. I want to say. I dressed up in tight shorts and did the whole thing. I took the script too literal, and they were like, it's too much. So then they keep auditioning people. Then they asked me to come back just minus the get up, please put put on regular people clothes.

And simultaneously I had the same day, I had an audition for a CBS pilot called The Assistance with t J. Miller, Heather Locklear, Sarah Right, David Henry. It was really cool multicamp show, and I got passed on by casting for that after my first read, because the casting assistant who was reading with me kept dropping lines, and so I had these big chunks of monol dogs and whenever she would drop a line, it would fast forward me to two scenes ahead and I would be so off what

she was saying that they passed on me. And I told my agent, I said, listen, I need to get back in there in an audition. I said, I guarantee you I'll book this. I said, I know this is this is a perfect character for me. You just gotta get me in. It was her fault, said, it wasn't my This is the assistance is yea, And they get me into They get me into this, back to for the assistance. Then I get a phone call saying that they want me to test for New Girl now for

the coach character. And I said, okay, great. So then they bring me back into read for the assistance, but this time with the producers, and so they stopped me halfway through my audition. I get through most of the audition, and they stopped me halfway through my audition, and then I thought, oh, maybe it was me. Maybe I was just bad. And then they go we hear you're testing for New Girl tomorrow. I said, yeah, can we ask you to tank that audition that I said, what, yeah,

because they really wanted me for the assistance. Remember I just got passed on for the assistance. You got passed on from the assistance. You're halfway through reading it and you think, oh god, I have been terrible. But actually reading halfway through, they already know they want you. Yes, this is incredible. And so I go home that day and I have this dilemma. Two shows that I'm about to test for paying roughly around the same money. You know, it wasn't it was my first TV job. It wasn't

about the money at that point. But and I'm with my buddy Ramsay, this good friend of mine, rams is him and as talented actor and Chad Boseman, God rest his soul. He was. He was like a mentor. Obviously he was in the business and he knew what to do. And he he said, hey, man, you have to do the job that fulfills you the most, whether you get it or not. You don't want to live with saying, you know, you didn't shoot your shot. I test for New Girl while I'm at I go to the test

I'm sorry. I go to the test for New Girl. I'm sitting in the courtyard. I get a call from my agent saying, don't sign that contract because now CBS has canceled their test and said we want to just make you a straight offer and pay you more money. What. Yeah, And so my agents advice was bird in the hand, take the job. So I took this the CBS offer. We tried to get a New Girl to make me an offer. They didn't want to. They didn't go with

their tests. They don't find anybody. They then hired Damon Wayne's Jr. Thinking his show Happy Endings wasn't going to get a second season. Exactly my show Assistance doesn't get picked up after the pilot. After the pilot, Happy Endings gets picked up for a second season, so Damon has to go. So now I'm thinking, hey, guys, hey remember me the guy walked that on your test, Like, can you bring me back him? And they loved Damon so much,

has performance so much. If you watch the pilot, he's fantastic. They wanted to keep that and not redo it, so they had to rewrite another to write another character in people. A lot of people say, oh, a black guy swap. This is just he's a black dude. You're stopping another black dude. It was no, it was it was like it was open to any ethnicity. I mean a lot of folks read for it. You name it, every ethnicity, you know, size, age. It was kind of like they

didn't know what they wanted. That's why I had to read so many times. It was constant changing of the sides, dynamics with character structured you know, status and my the koy one. Am I the boss of the group? Am I the shot? You know who? Am I? So it took a while. That's why I was that many auditions. Crazy. That is crazy. That has never happened to me. I have never been sitting at the courtyard at Fox or wherever you were and told no, someone else just made

you an offer, walk out on this test. That's amazing. Did you go in and tell them or did you just leave? That's why I want to know I walk into the room and say I'm sorry, I've just got another offer, or did you just get in your car and drive away? Almost almost I was walking to the room when my phone started vibring. My my agent said keep your phone on. I was walking with the casting director Seth Yanklewitz, and uh, either you walk into you

signed that. You signed that paper, And before I did it, I looked at him and I said, it's my agent. And he knew right away he did, he knew. Yeah, I loved you, Seth. I'm sorry I did that to you in that moment. But it worked out. Look at us, Look at us now. It worked out exactly. It worked out. You end up joining in the second episode, right, because they wanted they wanted the pilot to air as shot.

Is that right? Yeah, exactly, And that was weird. I gotta say for the first two seasons, I didn't know if I was being fired or not. I'll admit I wasn't. We weren't writing necessarily for my strength because we didn't know my strengths yet. We didn't know that dynamic would. We would try certain things and test certain things. He just wasn't working. Maybe maybe he's jobless, maybe he's uh, you know, he gets a job as an usher or

a babysitter. We were trying all these things, and then that became aim the game, a little bit of the character, and then I started playing into that more, doing bits off camera with the other actors. They started to realize the writers, I gotta say writers on a New Girl geniuses because they would look at the bits in between

stuff and figure out what was funny. They impro improvised stuff, and they would go, let's tailor it towards that, and they would write the most ridiculous stuff from my character and it worked and I loved it. Every every episode felt like a sketch comedy show to me because I didn't know what character trait I had that week. And you know, one week, my character is a professional, former professional basketball player. The next week he has thin fingers

and he can't carry anything. Next week he constantly has directions for some reason. It's like, what, So it was funny. It was fun. It was a fun fun show to do for sure. After the second season for me, when you felt like they figured out who you were and we're able to play into what you felt like your strength was. Yeah, And once I knew I wasn't gonna get fired, I was just more comfortable going to work every day. It's like, Okay, why don't you think you

were going to be fired? Was there anything specifically that happened? I thought I was under performing to be quite honest with you, I knew what I was capable of doing, but I would leave fit every day going I didn't do what I wanted to do. And they don't know that I have this weird energy that I could perform at this level that I could perform at I don't

think they I don't think I've done it yet. And I would watch the episodes back and sometimes that cringe at him, and I don't know if that's that's any good. It's very insecure. I was extremely insecure, and you know, my cast mates, obviously in the producers would kind of reassure me, like, you're not going anywhere, but you know, I know how this business is, you know, and and they were very gracious to give me a lot of room to grow. I think we're all glad it happened

that way, because it was just another piece too. I think otherwise Perfect asked, everybody on the show is clicking on all cylinders from day one, and I was trying to find my footing. Yeah. I feel like there's in a lot of ways a similarity between the Office and New Girl in terms of this sort of disparate collection of characters that are that find themselves together and form this sort of pseudo family in a way, right is that is that a stretch not a stretch at all,

Not a stretch at all. It's like, no matter what office you go into to them in that office there this you have a story about a guy who acts this where oh I know this woman, she behaves this way, and you wouldn't believe it until you saw it, you know. And then the office is a heightened version of what people can identify with all the characters on the show. And I think that's the same way with New Girls.

That people they have these people who live together, and everyone has a story about my roommate does this, or he wears a kimono at night and you don't know, no, he doesn't. And then you watch New Girl and you people go, look that's about me, you know. You know, it's a weird group of people that have a common bond, and you know, and they and they stick it out and they stick together. And I think the reason why our shows resignated is because and lasted for so long,

is because people at home felt connected to the characters. Right, No, for sure, when did you realize that the show was taking off? It was gonna, you know, after you after you found your own personal security in terms of your job security, when did you feel like you're gonna, we're gonna be around for a while. Do you remember was there a moment, there were a few I gotta say, once people started knowing my name on the street because people people always, they still to this day, called me

Winston from Winstay. It's constant. But the moment people would go Mr Morris, let more la more getting get a photo, and I thought, my god, they looked up my name like they they know people are invested in It's like sometimes you watch a TV show and then you'll just go onto the next. Some of my favorite shows, I couldn't tell you the actor's real names. You know. Now I can't be you know, because we're in the business now.

But like it's one of those things where you're walking on the street, somebody says your name and it hits you like, my goodness, that's what they know me from. I must it must be working. And when you would read I'm not supposed to read comments, but I read them. And when you see so many, whether they're good or bad, I go there's a conversation around an episode that we did there, you go, oh, people care, people are actually invested. Then you see fan fiction you know about about your showing,

You're like, whoa, people are disgusting but also invested. Yes, um, have you ever played true American? I have American? Yeah, but on the accident kind of I was. It was a party going on in Hollywood and we walked past it and you know, people recognize me and they were like, you'll never believe what we're doing over here. We're playing

to American. And I reached out to the guy. We exchanged Instagrams afterwards, and I've been I've been talking to him lately, like where are the photos that I'm in? He's like, I was trying to keep you out of him because I didn't want to be that guy would be a paparazzi guy while your party. But I even posted some photos of my instagram back then. They were literally having a full on true American party in their front yard. That's amazing, like standing on chairs, doing DIBs

and you know, screaming JF carry after. It was a whole thing, which also blew my mind till this day. It still blows my mind. A drinking game with no rules. You know, Yes, I went in prepera this is not a joke. I was like, oh yeah, that true American, and I got online to try to ascertain and figure out what the rules were. Reading the description of True American, by the way, A drinking game from New Girl left me more confused, and I thought that I was to

start with. So I don't know if that's a good thing about that, but that's that's the point. That's the point, because if they're all those beers, you're gonna be confused and in the night you're gonna Why did I do this? Why? I one of the things that happened on the office, it was intentional. Greg Daniels, our showrunner, had come from Saturday Night Live, and from the very beginning he felt

like the ensemble experience was incredibly important. But the ensemble experience not just amongst the actors, amongst everyone, and so he had writers who were actors and actors who were writers, and I know a New Girl, you guys had a similar experience. You wrote an episode, you directed an episode.

Was that you or was that a part of the culture you you feel like that that was created on the show A little a little of both Liz Mayweather is very She asked a lot of questions and loves hearing stories about personal life and incorporating things that you may have done. And you know, that testament to all the writers as well. They just you know, they want to know, and they all know and knew that I

had aspirations to direct and to write. You know, I would always have ideas on set as actors were always pitching ideas, character storylines. My whole, the whole Winston being a police officer was my idea, and then writing the

episode came because of that. The episode that I wrote was about my character being being new to the force but then meeting this woman that he really liked and was vibing with, and then she finds out that she's protesting the police, and so he's like, oh, so he's now doesn't know if he's ashamed to be a cop or if he's proud to be a guy. He doesn't know. And so because because he's a black police officer, you know, so he's like, uh wait, you know, and that came

from Twitter. So on the show, my character is named Ferguson. At the time, there was a lot of civil unrest based off what happened in Ferguson and people started tweeting me. They were like, oh, how's it feel to play a black cop with a cat named Ferguson in these times? And I was like, God, damn it if I get one more tweet about this, and people started really asking me questions went from being funny two serious, like, na, brother, you gotta speak up. What do you think about this?

And it's like, I'm just an actor, but okay. Uh So I went to Liz Maryweather because I genuinely started feeling uncomfortable. I asked her if I could address it on the show, and so she said, why don't you write an episode? So she paired me with Rob rose l one of our fantastic writer producers, and we came up with an episode and we addressed it in in a way, you know, a very Network TV funny kind of way, but we still put some light on it and what could possibly go through the police officer's head

in that moment. He doesn't meet someone like that, you know, in these times that we're living in. So that was the reason why I wrote that one, but it was for her. It was like, please do it. And then directing they just asked, Hey, do you want to direct? Damn right? I do? Yeah, And that was easy. I was. I want to say it's easy. The process was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. But on set everyone was so everyone except for Max s Greenfield.

Everyone besides Max Screenfield was so kind. Max. Max was intentionally a dick. Yeah, yeah, I had that too, Rain Wilson. Yeah, and it makes it just it just to make it, just to make a diymmical. Yeah, just take that whatever the little, maybe the teeniest amount of insecurity you might have, and just just twisted in. Yep it oh it. Even though you know they love you and they're messing with you,

it's still it works. What they're doing is working. I'm getting more and more insecure as the day goes on. I'm like my in over my head. You brought up Ferguson. Are you a cat guy? Um? This is gonna disappoint a lot of people. No, in fact, hell no, you know, I I don't mind. I don't mind cats anymore. When I was younger, my buddy used to have a bunch of cats, and one of them, when it was a kitten, he said, oh, it's buttercut hold Buttercup. I said, oh, hey,

Buttercup is so adorable. And we just got through playing basketball, so I had no shirt on. Buttercup goes and attaches to my chest and slides down and cuts up my chest on its way down. Because it was too fast, you didn't see it coming. You couldn't stop this attack if you tried. Cats are super quick and sneaky. I don't trust them, at least with dogs. They're loud and you know they're coming. You know they're coming. This one cats and I watched Pet Cemetery and it was the

scary film. Yeah, so now I don't I don't think cats. Is there a thing that fans talk to you about the most? Is there a moment from New Girl that people talk to you about the most? There's a couple Ferguson, for sure. You know I'm joking, but cats are like incredible creatures. So people that cat people out there that I love to talk about Ferguson, But I would probably say one of the moments that people always bring up

is Prince. You know, we had prints on our show for an episode, and that to me was one of the more significant moments in my just my life. You know, being on camera with Prince and being around him backstage and or off camera and just talking and having him share stories and having him just Prince showed up to our rap party, which was crazy. That's awesome, It's super awesome. And I said to I said, hey, you don't stick around for a while, and he looks at me giggles. Goodness,

no question done, get out of here. I don't think i've ever shared this story before. I would say the most quintessential Hollywood, you know when you put Hollywood in quotes, Hollywood moments of my entire life. I don't remember the event. It was some pre award show event at Chateau Marmont, the famous Chateau marm at this point in my time, and I didn't even know there were bungalows at the Chateau Marmont. And by the way, if you're listening, there

are bungalows at the Chateau Marmont. Some of these bungalows are very nice, and at least one bungalow has a piano. And something happened very late at night was someone said, oh, come into this bungalow. And I went into this bungalow and there was Prince sitting at the piano playing Get the Chateau MArmand, and I thought, okay, well this is it for me. This this is the moment. This is the Hollywood moment that you know, I never thought would come,

but that has has suddenly brought itself here. So I don't know exactly the experience of working with him or hanging out with him, but how cool and amazing he is. Yeah. Oh, you walk into a room and Princes playing the piano. You know you've made it, or at least you've been invited somewhere where somebody's made it exactly. You're you're at the table, a kind of at the table. Yeah. Yeah, an incredible run a new girl. Now you guys are going back, as we talked about at the beginning, welcome

to our show. You're rewatching it now in real time, right, Yeah, I'm looking at it in real time right from where I'm sitting. I have a tem be back here. I watch it. I take notes, I I do. I dive back in and it's interesting. I find myself instead of taking notes, I find myself laughing as a fan because I didn't get a chance to truly enjoy it. While it was on because you know, it's airing, we're filming.

It's airing, we're filming. Now. It's like I could go and binge it and forget that I'm supposed to be taking notes. You know. It's a it's a It just reminds me of a beautiful time in my career. Not to say it's not great now, but you know, then it was like I was younger and I was care care free, I had you know, I was on the television show just show it up. You know, I got kid Now, I got I got responsibilities. Does it bring you back to the moments of shooting it as you're

rewatching it? Absolutely, I don't know how it feels to you. When I'm watching it, I forget about some of I have to remember some of the like negative moments. I tried to because I want to write those things down, like that was something that was bugging me that day, Like I can't remember, you know, and I try to think about the negative stuff, but you can't because the editors do a good job and making me look happy on those days. But uh, it definitely takes me back

to to that time. This is gonna sound Oh, this sounds cheesy, you know what I mean. So I'm not that guy, but it definitely puts a warming sensation in your belly. It's like Christmas when Santa comes out the chimney, or your drunk neighbor, the guy who shows up, you know, the guy who'll doing your mom's Christmas black come here? Yeah,

I know. I during the pandemic, I went back and rewatched the Office as well, and it's interesting, you know, for us, a lot of the episodes, you know, we were doing quite a bit of improving and stuff, and the first edit would come back at like forty three minutes.

For me, the thing that struck me the most was taking me back to the moments where we were when we were shooting it, and then also remembering what actually made the cut, like what is actually a part of from a narrative now you know, or what what got you know that that's itself like what got cut? Or yeah I know that For me, that was it. Do you?

You obviously haven't gotten and your rewatch to the finale, any specific memories for you of your last days on set or your last day Oh my gosh, oh my god. It was such a surreal moment. It was mixed feelings. I still think about it a lot of time when you watch it. They did such a great job of capturing how we are actually feeling. You know, our finale

is us leaving our loft. You know, we're standing in there in this loft playing True American, and then we end up we fast forward on the show to us having kids, playing True American with kids, and then we rewind back to us in being this empty loft. Now, on that day when we were shooting, I remember behind camera they all showed up, all the writers are there, everyone was there, and everyone was emotional. It was very

except for Jake Johnson. I think actually he left immediately He's like peace, Uh, but it was we were all It was a very emotional time. You know, you spend you know, seven years on a television show and you get to know so many people and your it's a true family. You spent so many hours with each other. I remember us being on that this empty box and this empty loft going like they're clearing out the stage for real, They're not gonna put props back in here.

It's actually empty. It was. It was an unbelievable feeling. They saved the last moment for our last day. They did it right, you know, you know, and fans will and fans don't know. Just then then they find out that it was all just a big prank by me, which was my character was like, oh, we didn't have to move out the loft. Look at this kind of leaves the door open for a reunion, you know, but who knows. That's awesome. Um April eight woke, it's back for season two. By the way, I saw, JB Smooth

is on it. So is it now in your contract that everything you do has to have JB Smooth? Or or maybe everything he does has to have you, or man, it has to I can't go a day without talking to j B. I can't. I love that dude so much. Man, he's so funny when I tell you so, directing him, he plays my quote unquote father and new girl, and uh, I got a chance to direct him, and you know it's not really directing him. He kind of jab gonna do a JB Gonna do. It was so funny. The

way he improvises has me in tears. You don't want to cut anything. I can give you a story about JB. We were doing barbershop actually when we were in barbershop together. You know, you do a table read, you pretty much stick to the script so the writers and everybody can see what works, you know, changing roads whatever. That's the point, right, just to see what works. I'm a table read is that you read the words that were written, so you

see what works. Yes, that's correct, Go ahead, that's the point. J B goes. JB just goes left. I mean he added maybe five minutes of dialogue to this one particular scene. And I tell you the writers were like, bingo added it to the movie. His character in the movie now has this huge art, like this big that was way more than it was on the page, and it's brilliant. It was. It was almost like they left it intentionally because they knew JB was going to do something with it.

And when I say in tears at the table read, then him and Sad with the entertainer started improvising together, going back and forth, roasting each other, improvising full on jokes to each other at the table read, and I just thought this is gonna be crazy, and I and I and that's how it was on set, and I was like this, if I could do barbershop for the rest of my life. I'll do barbershop for the rest of my life. So yeah, that that's just one story about JB of many that where you go, hey man,

the lines are, oh another quick story. I'm sorry. I was sorry. I was pitching something and I needed JB to like send a funny little clip. I said, just like ten seconds anything you want. But in this parameter he sends to me, I think at eight minute video, I say, he's just like, hey man, So here you're pitching the show man. Look, man, look when you're pitching the show, anytime you go in there, what you want to do is you want to wrap toilet paper around

your hand. You see, just have a just have a whole bunch of toilet paper on your hand. So you get there and and you get there to your to your pitch, They're gonna go, what the hell is he doing with toilet paper in his hand? See already you're throwing them off unmer staying I'm looking at the toilet paper. You see what I'm saying, He goes, Or what you wanna do is you wanna have the meeting real early, like five thirty am. It's like just every butt crack

of Dawn. Just have a real early pitch meeting, and you go in there and you sit down and just have a pocket full of loose grapes, just loose grapes, and just every once in a while when you're talking to you're talking, just Papa, loose grape in your mouth, welcome me, bearscome me Bear's work. And then he goes, oh, and about all these things you need to do. So amazing the tears. It's like, Dab, I just want you to say, I a doors this show. Oh gosh, you

are the best. Thank you so much. Woke. That's right, April Amen, Season two premier. Have you had fun doing that? Absolutely? Absolutely? The cast on this show, the creators of the show, I mean, the best group of folks. Um. You know, we got Sishi's and made a Blake Anderson T. Murph this season. We got Amy Garcia on the show. You named Miguel Piso, Marky Degings, we got Billy magnuson this show.

This season. I'm telling you, folks would be really really shot, often pleasantly surprised, you know, with what they're going to see, you know, just creating this kind of weird environment talking about certain things that are kind of political, but you leave it so open ended. You're following the lens of a guy who doesn't know which way who he is politically. You're following his view and you're like, hey, that's kind

of how I am. Like, Oh, you know, in the world of misinformation and left or right or whatever the hell you want to be on he's that person. He's like, I don't know, you know, I think a lot of people will resonate with this character and what he's going through. So I'm excited for folks to see it. Awesome, Well, I cannot wait to see it as well. You are hilarious, engaging, such a pleasure to actually talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Man, you as well, Man,

you as well. I'm a huge fan, dude. I think you're hilarious and and that, and I'm super like honored that you would have me on your show. So I man, I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Urn, It's like I've always known you. Thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. This was truly my pleasure. To the rest of you, I'm gonna see you next week for another episode of Off the Beat. In the meantime, make sure to like, subscribe, comment you know the drill and if I were you, I would

also tune into La Mourns podcast. Welcome to our show because us podcasters we gotta stick together until next time. Everybody, have a great week. Off The Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our producers are d A Go Tapia, Liz Hayes, Emily Carr, and Hannah Harris. Our talent producer, He's Ryan Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olandski