Key Points
Tracy Morgan says he’d cry when his sketches didn’t make it on Saturday Night Live.
Morgan admitted his heart was “breaking” as he stood on stage for the goodbyes.
He told Marcello Hernández that the current SNL star reminds him of himself.
More like, The Fall and Rise of Tracy Morgan Sketches.
The star of NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins sat down with current Saturday Night Live breakout Marcello Hernández, and Morgan reflected on the ups and downs of his time on the iconic sketch series.
“Tuesday is writing night. That’s when you’re at peak creativity,” Morgan said on Variety‘s Actors on Actors. “That’s the only time you have creative control, and you hope on Wednesday, your stuff is laying on the right side of the board, because if it’s on the left, you in trouble.”
When Morgan’s pitches wound up on the left side of the board, the Emmy nominee was dejected and returned to his dressing room to be alone in his feelings.
“When I wasn’t in the show [because my sketches were rejected] — I got a wife and kids at home. They want to see me on TV. I would sit in my dressing room and play a song and I would cry,” he shared. “Then I would have to go up on the stage and fake it and say goodbye. And smile when your heart is breaking.”
Tracy Morgan on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Credit: Will Heath/NBC
Morgan added, “That’s how bad I wanted it. I’m still like that. You know why we do comedy? Necessity. But once you make it, then you surround yourself with people that need to do this as a necessity. You might not have no bills to pay, because you made it. But they got bills to pay, so they got to be funny.”
Morgan was cast on SNL in 1996, and his run lasted for seven seasons. Then, in 2006, he stayed in the Lorne Michaels Universe, doing another seven seasons, this time on 30 Rock as the unpredictable comedian Tracy Jordan, who joins the sketch program The Girlie Show.
Among Morgan’s most memorable SNL sketches and characters are Safari Planet host Brian Fellow, outspoken maintenance man Dominican Lou, and sex-crazed space traveler Astronaut Jones.
“It was the time of my life,” Morgan reflected. “I was young. I didn’t know anything, and that’s where I learned. That’s why I say Lorne Michaels is like my dad. My dad died in ’87, but he was working through Lorne. He said, ‘Take care of my boy.’”
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Having just completed his fourth year on SNL, Hernández is now one of the most popular cast members, thanks to characters like Domingo and The Movie Guy.
“I was so happy when you got on the show,” Morgan told him. “I was there many years before you, but if I was with you, it would’ve been me and you. You are basically me on the show.”
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