Lamorne Morris (born August 14, 1983) is an American actor, comedian and television personality. He is known for roles such as

Winston Bishop ''New Girl'' is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether. The show, set in Los Angeles, depicts the interpersonal adventures of offbeat teacher Jess (Zooey Deschanel) after her spontaneous move into an apartment loft with t ...

in the Fox sitcom ''

New Girl ''New Girl'' is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether and produced by 20th Television for Fox that originally aired from September 20, 2011, to May 15, 2018. The series revolves around a kooky teacher, Jessica Day ( Zoo ...

'' (2011-2018), Darrin Morris in the

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widel ...

docudrama ''

Valley of the Boom ''Valley of the Boom'' (stylized as ''Valley_of_the_BOOM'') is an American docudrama television miniseries created by Matthew Carnahan that premiered on January 13, 2019, on National Geographic. The series centers on the 1990s tech boom and bus ...

'' (2019), about the 90s tech boom, and cartoonist Keef Knight in the

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

comedy ''Woke'' (2020-2022). He has also had supporting roles in the films '' Barbershop: The Next Cut'' (2016), '' Game Night'' (2018)'','' '' Jumanji: The Next Level'' (2019), and ''Yesterday'' (2019).

Early life

Morris grew up in the South Side of Chicago. As a teenager he moved to the western suburb of

Glen Ellyn Glen Ellyn is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. A suburb located due west of downtown Chicago, the village has a population of 28,846 as of the 2020 Census. History Glen Ellyn, like the neighboring town to the east, Lomba ...

, where he attended Glenbard South High School. His mother worked for the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

. He also has a brother, Devon. Before he discovered acting, Morris was a class clown who would frequently be sent to detention. Morris graduated from the

College of DuPage College of DuPage is a public community college with its main campus in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The college also owns and operates facilities in the Illinois communities of Addison, Carol Stream, Naperville and Westmont. With more than 20,000 ...

in 2003 where he studied theatre and received the

Chris Farley Christopher Crosby Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American actor and comedian. Farley was known for his loud, energetic comedic style, and was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and later a cast member of the ...

Memorial Acting Scholarship. He also attended the Second City Training Center, and was a member of Second City's Outreach And Diversity Ensemble. While studying at Second City, Morris worked as a server at Ed Debevic's, a retro-themed diner where the servers act rude to the diners.

Career

Morris appeared in commercials for

State Farm Insurance State Farm Insurance is a large group of mutual insurance companies throughout the United States with corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois. Overview State Farm is the largest property and casualty insurance provider, and the lar ...

Taco Bell Taco Bell is an American-based chain of fast food restaurants founded in 1962 by Glen Bell (1923–2010) in Downey, California. Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. The restaurants serve a variety of Mexican-inspired foods, includi ...

, Twix,

Miller Lite Miller Lite is a 4.2% ABV light American lager beer sold by Molson Coors (previously MillerCoors) of Chicago, Illinois. The company also produces Miller Genuine Draft and Miller High Life. Miller Lite competes mainly with Anheuser-Busch' ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

7 Up 7 Up (stylized as 7up outside North America) is an American brand of lemon-lime-flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper although the beverage is internationally distributed by PepsiCo. 7 Up co ...

, Edge,

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

Chili's Chili's Grill & Bar is an American casual dining restaurant chain. The company was founded by Larry Lavine in Texas in 1975 and is currently owned and operated by Brinker International. History Chili's first location, a converted postal stati ...

, McDonald's, Ford and Hornitos Tequila. In 2019, he became the spokesperson for Canadian based

Bank of Montreal The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company. The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its head office remains in ...

and Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank. Morris started out as an on-air personality for

BET Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los ...

, hosting ''HotWyred'', an interactive tech and gaming show as well as the daily music and entertainment news show ''

BET Now A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devic ...

'' in addition to other appearances. Morris also hosted the game show ''BrainRush'' on

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

as part of CN Real. Morris's breakthrough came when he was cast as Winston Bishop in the comedy series ''

'' on Fox (2011–2018). Morris did not appear until the second episode - originally,

Damon Wayans Jr. Damon Kyle Wayans Jr. (born November 18, 1982) is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for starring as Brad Williams in the ABC sitcom '' Happy Endings'', for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award f ...

was a member of the cast, in the role of Coach. However, Wayans' other comedy series, '' Happy Endings'', had already been picked up for a second season on rival network ABC. The producers of ''New Girl'' initially planned to recast Wayans' role, but later decided not to recast and instead wrote his character out in the second episode. Morris cowrote the season 4 episode "Par 5" and directed the final season episode in which Winston reconnects with his dad, played by

J.B. Smoove Jerry Angelo Brooks (born December 16, 1965), commonly known by his stage name J. B. Smoove, is an American actor, comedian and writer. After beginning his career in 1995 on ''Def Comedy Jam'', he was a writer and performer on NBC's '' Saturday ...

. In November 2018 it was announced that Morris would be starring in a half-hour

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

, ''Woke'', based on cartoonist Keith Knight's autobiographical comic strip ''

The K Chronicles ''The K Chronicles'' is an autobiographical weekly comic strip by the independent cartoonist Keith Knight that has been produced since the early 1990s. Knight is an African-American artist whose comics often explore themes relevant to his racial ...

'' on

. It ran for two seasons, released in 2020 and 2022, and was canceled in June 2022. Morris has also appeared in the films '' Barbershop: The Next Cut'' (2016), '' Game Night'' (2018)'','' ''

The Christmas Chronicles ''The Christmas Chronicles'' is a 2018 American Christmas comedy film directed by Clay Kaytis from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman. The film stars Kurt Russell, Judah Lewis, Darby Camp, Lamorne Morris, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Oliver Hudson ...

'' (2018), '' Jumanji: The Next Level'' (2019), ''Yesterday'' (2019), ''Bloodshot'' (2020) and '' Desperados'' (2020). During the

Covid-19 lockdown Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions colloquially known as lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar societal restrictions) have been implemented in numerous countrie ...

, Morris co-created and starred in the scripted action-comedy podcast ''Unwanted'' for QCODE. The 8-episode series revolves around a pair of slackers who attempt to capture an escaped murderer hiding in their town for a million-dollar reward. In April 2021, it was announced that Morris would co-star in an Indie horror film titled ''Night Shift'', alongside

Phoebe Tonkin Phoebe Jane Elizabeth Tonkin (born 12 July 1989) is an Australian actress. She is known for portraying Cleo Sertori in '' H2O: Just Add Water'', Fiona Maxwell in '' Tomorrow, When the War Began'', Faye Chamberlain in '' The Secret Circle'', and ...

and

Madison Hu Madison Hu (born June 2, 2002) is an American actress. She is known for playing the role of Frankie Wong on the Disney Channel series '' Bizaardvark'', and for her previous recurring role as Marci on the Disney Channel series ''Best Friends When ...

. The film will be directed by Paul and Benjamin China He began cohosting ''Welcome to Our Show'', a ''New Girl'' rewatch podcast with co-stars Hannah Simone and

Zooey Deschanel Zooey Claire Deschanel (; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She made her film debut in '' Mumford'' (1999) and had a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film '' Almost Famous'' (2000). Deschanel is known for h ...

, distributed by

IHeartRadio iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast and radio streaming platform owned by iHeartMedia. It was founded in August 2008. , iHeartRadio was functioning as the national umbrella brand for iHe ...

, in January 2022. In 2022, he was cast as Witt Farr in the upcoming fifth season of the FX

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and comb ...

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically cate ...

series '' Fargo''.

Personal life

Morris is an avid baseball, basketball and bowling fan, supporting the

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...

and famous professional bowler Pete Weber, and has said that every room in his house has something to do with basketball.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Lamorne 1983 births Male actors from Chicago African-American male actors African-American television personalities American male comedians American male film actors American game show hosts American male television actors American male voice actors Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Comedians from Illinois People from Glen Ellyn, Illinois 21st-century American comedians 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people