Over a decade after NBC office comedy “30 Rock” came to a close, Tracy Morgan wanted to team up with the creators for a new collaboration.
The former All City running back in his own right became the perfect star for Robert Carlock, Sam Means and Tina Fey’s latest project “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.”
The minds behind “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” teamed to capture the story of the titular disgraced former NFL star, played by Morgan. The mockumentary follows Reggie as he attempts to rehabilitate his image with the help of Oscar Award-winning filmmaker Arthur Tobin (Daniel Radcliffe).
Having started their careers together at “Saturday Night Live,” Carlock and Morgan have a trust built that eases their perhaps unlikely creative collaboration.
“When we started at SNL together, he was one of those voices that was so fun for me to discover,” Carlock told TheWrap. “Writing for him, it’s unique. There’s a groundedness, and there’s, at the same time, a ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next.’”
The comedy series is buoyed by Morgan’s out-of-pocket one-liners and distinctive facial expressions. Though so many of Reggie’s lines are Tracy-isms, Morgan told TheWrap the cast rarely improvised on set. Carlock noted the duo’s long-standing relationship made it easy to bring all of Morgan to the part.
“This is a relationship,” Morgan said of his history with the executive producers. “We don’t have to improv a lot because the writing is magic. We all come from ‘SNL.’ Rob and Sam and Tina know our voices, so they know what we would say and what we wouldn’t say, so it was easy for us. You just come to work.”
The twist of this mockumentary is that it places the documentarian in front of the camera. Reggie and Tobin (Radcliffe) could not be more opposite on paper, which made the duo the perfect centerpiece for the NBC comedy.
“When we started developing the script, we had [Radcliffe] in mind immediately for the odd coupleness of it,” Carlock said. “When we went to Tracy to say, we were thinking of Dan for this, his immediate reaction was, ‘Oh, we’re opposites.’ ”
Radcliffe serves as the foil to Morgan’s unhinged, aging football star, but the documentarian has secrets of his own. The series’ creators knew Radcliffe’s comedic ability from their previous collaboration on Netflix’s interactive special, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend” and thought he would service the project.
“What Tracy can do, it’s unteachable and unlearnable,” Radcliffe told TheWrap. “There’s a natural charisma and charm and comedy. There are line readings that he can do that are out of the reach of most actors, because he can make sense of stuff that just would not make sense in other people’s mouths.”
Radcliffe noted though that the writers like to make him say things that may not work coming out of someone else’s mouth, too. As the British, upper echelon documentarian entering this chaotic family comedy, Tobin stumbles, too.
“It’s so funny that he went from winning the Oscar to porno,” Morgan said of Radcliffe’s character’s fall from grace. “Stupid.”
“The idea of the director being part of it, being drawn into it, but also between Reggie’s point of view, Tobin’s point of view, and Monica’s point of view them all having that underlying conflict of who gets to have final say, who gets to be the one who’s telling the story, and we think that kind of underlies a lot of the season,” Means said.
“The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” cast also includes “SNL” alum Bobby Moynihan, Erika Alexander, Precious Way and Jalyn Hall. Carlock, Means, Fey, Morgan, Eric Gurian and David Miner executive produce the NBC mockumentary series.
The NBC comedy airs Mondays on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.
