“You know what sunshine is?” Mid-conversation, Tracy Morgan is suddenly wondering aloud. “Sunshine is when a beautiful woman walks in the room naked. My woman just got out of the shower, and oooh, is she gorgeous.”
This is what it’s like to talk to Morgan. He’s at times somber — he choked up while talking about Tina Fey during a recent “Oprah” appearance — at times hilarious, at times thoughtful. Sometimes, though, the 41-year-old Bronx native is just nonsensical.
The unpredictable star of “30 Rock” appears in Friday’s “Death at a Funeral,” a remake of director Frank Oz’s 2007 British comedy about a wake gone terribly wrong. Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson and Zoe Saldana also star.
Luke Wilson said you were picking up girls while being towed down the street in a camera-ready car.
Absolutely. All day long. I’m like the Gorton’s Fisherman. I gotta keep my mack up. You’re macking the girls — macaroni, you know. Just hollah. You keep your game sharp. If you get the girls laughing, then everybody will follow.
He also said you didn’t know his name for the first few weeks of filming. You called him “Lou.”
Yeah, that’s my dude. Yo, Lou! I knew his name. I was just calling him Lou.
Word is, you also hit on a hot, blondE “30 Rock” extra by telling her she looked like she was married to a baseball player.
Yeah. “You look like you’re married to a shortstop for the San Diego Padres.” A shortstop! That’s the hardest position on the baseball team. She didn’t give me her number. Sometimes it ain’t about that. It’s just about making somebody smile, because after a smile, soon follows a laugh.
Did you watch the original “Death at a Funeral”?
Absolutely. I watched the first one when it came out, and I thought that it was incredible that we got to do our version of it. It’s basically the same movie. It’s just that we’re black, and they’re British.
Your fans launched a campaign to get you on Twitter, which you eventually did. But you haven’t tweeted since November.
I haven’t abandoned it. I’ve been moving at the speed of light lately. I’m in a different movie every two months. I should go back on so I don’t neglect my followers. But they see what’s going on, so it’s not like, “Where has he been?”
Is there one particular gig you’re glad you didn’t do?
Yeah, college. Because if I went, I might have ended up at some crappy job. I’m glad I dropped out of high school, man. I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I would have had a net. I’m glad I didn’t have anything to fall back on, man, because that made me go for my dreams that much harder.