Lamorne Morris interview: ‘Fargo’
SPOILER ALERT: This article and video contain spoilers for Season 5.
“I was kinda disappointed originally,” admits Lamorne Morris about his character’s ending on “Fargo.” In our recent webchat he adds, “As an actor you want to be this hero with your shirt off and a six-pack. You want to be Denzel Washington, but that doesn’t serve the story all the time. The way this went down served the story.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“Fargo” is the FX anthology series created by Noah Hawley that was inspired by the 1996 Joel and Ethan Coen film. Each season takes a darkly comedic look at new characters dealing with life and crime in the Midwest. The series’ fifth installment tells the story of Dot, played by Juno Temple, whose normal life is disrupted when her abusive ex-husband, Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), discovers her whereabouts. Morris plays Witt Farr, a state trooper who seeks to help Dot after she saves his life.
Morris explains, “In this role there was a sense of urgency. The stakes were a lot higher with this character than there have been in the past for me. There’s a lot happening with debt this season. Witt is one of those folks with a clean slate debt wise. Now he finds himself in a race against time to pay this debt for Dot.”
In the finale, Witt pursues a fleeing Roy into an abandoned dugout with lethal consequences. Morris admits, “The reason my character had to die was because there’s a level of pure that we wanted to see tainted. In this town a lot of the characters have their ups, downs and flaws. Witt has a level of heart to him. For the time you see him, he’s always trying to do something noble. Even in the dugout, the audience just wants him to shoot Roy Tillman. Just pull the trigger! Even in that moment, he does not. So when he goes, it’s a bigger blow for the audience.”
To prepare for his first on-screen death, Morris recounts, “I spoke to a friend of mine who’s a former navy seal. He said the hardest part about what he had to do was looking at someone’s face when they died. He could see them check out and go somewhere else. That’s what I was trying to capture. Where is he going? What is he seeing? I would have loved to have croaked in a very broad style, but I had to go somewhere else.”
Morris is also known for his comedic roles in the TV show “New Girl” and the film “Game Night.” The actor reflects that “you want to expand your wings. Folks know me from comedy, but this isn’t a role they see me do. So you run the risk, if not performed well, to never be able to perform those types of roles again.”
