The American teen abroad: an interview with ‘Morris from America’ star Markees Christmas

Up and coming teenage actor Markees Christmas is psyched to have some peameal bacon. While sitting down for breakfast at The Rex on Queen Street in Toronto for breakfast this past Friday morning, all he orders is bacon. The seventeen-year-old can’t remember the last time he was so excited to order something. He can’t remember the last time he had it, but he remembers loving it. Thankfully, when his order arrives, his memory of one of Canada’s greatest inventions lives up to his expectations, and he’s positively jubilant.

If it sounds strange opening up a story about an interview about a teenager ordering some bacon, I only do so to describe Markees Christmas, star of the indie film Morris from America (now available on iTunes and Shaw VOD in Canada), as a genuine, down to earth sort of kid. He’s not a trained or polished actor, or at least not yet, anyway. He doesn’t really have a firm handle on his craft yet, but he’s good at what he does and he knows he wants to pursue it further in the future. Most importantly, it’s refreshing to sit down with someone who still knows what it’s like to be a kid, and Christmas’ first wide-eyed trip to Toronto certainly exhibits that.

In Morris from America, the latest film from American filmmaker Chad Hartigan (who previously made the slept on This is Martin Bonner), Christmas plays the titular role, an awkward American teenager trying best to adjust to life in a German city alongside his widowed, soccer coaching father (played by Craig Robinson, deftly balancing the comedy he’s known for and a more dramatic and subtly emotional side). Morris is a shy, out of place sort who has trouble connecting to people, and it’s easy to see why. The hip-hop loving Morris doesn’t fit in with his largely white classmates – save for Katrin (played by Lina Keller) – and the difference in language and culture seems insurmountable at first.

Hartigan came across Los Angeles area native Markees through a series of comedic YouTube sketches he made with his Big Brother and mentor Matt Hill. Although he had dabbled in acting since the age of 8, Morris from America marked the first true test of Christmas’ abilities as a performer, and it’s an experience the young man is truly grateful for.

We caught up over a bacon and Sprite breakfast to talk about his experience making his first big film.

For you, when it came to taking on your first starring role in a film, was it important to take a film that feels as real as Morris from America instead of something that might have been a bit broader like the YouTube videos that you had made previously?

Markees Christmas: To tell the truth, this wasn’t really a huge step over for me. My process really isn’t anything more than just stepping into your character’s shoes, whoever that might be. That’s basically just how I do it. But you could say that I like sticking to realistic characters rather than flamboyant ones. As far as it goes, though, it just depends on the scripts for me before I go into something or before I audition for something. I like to go after things where I feel like I could play the character right when I go into the audition and if I like the character or think it’s interesting. I think I base what I’m going to want to pursue on that. I mean, keeping it realistic just makes things so much easier for me, even when Morris was doing something funny. I don’t really have to do anything out of the ordinary if it feels real to me, and that makes the process of getting to know the character a lot easier.

How did you get hooked up with Chad Hartigan?

Markees Christmas: Chad found me through my YouTube videos that me and my mentor Matt were doing, and someone told Chad about it through the grapevine of a monthly film festival that Matt and I had been doing before all this came about. Someone told Chad about it, and he actually contacted Matt through YouTube, and Matt at first thought Chad was some kind of creep, so he didn’t even tell me about it! (laughs) Once he actually got around to speaking with Chad, he knew it was legit, and once Matt finally got around to telling me, I said, “Of course I want to do this.” Everything is big to me because I haven’t experienced a lot of things, so this was the biggest thing yet.

Did you feel a bit like Morris being an outsider yourself to both the film world and spending a lot of time on location in Germany?

Markees Christmas: I never thought at that age I’d be doing a film where I’m playing someone so close to myself in Germany. There were points where I really stayed in character without any trouble. (laughs) There were days where I really felt like I wasn’t acting because I was really Morris. I’d be in my room freestyling and staying in character, but it was easy to do being over there. Then there were some scenes I just couldn’t fully prepare for, like sitting in the car with Craig and us having our heart-to-heart talk, or that scene with the pillow in Morris bedroom that everyone talks about. (laughs) I really wanted Chad to take that out, but once I got up in that room with that pillow, we were practically married. It became a big joke at the wrap party. Chad brought the pillow along and made a big deal out of giving it to me. I actually didn’t know at the wrap party how to take that because I was still kinda senstitive about it, you know? I didn’t know how a crowd was going to take that scene. I gotta show my friends this. What are my friends gonna say about this? And then when I did show them their reaction and I saw that they laughed and were kind of cool with it, I knew I had the character right. I knew there was a lot of Morris in me that was always there.

When did you first realize you wanted to start pursuing acting seriously?

Markees Christmas: Honestly, I really only realized that I wanted to do this seriously once I got on the set of Morris from America. Once I hit the set and got comfortable being there with everybody, I really fell in love with it. At fifteen years old I feel like I really figured out what I wanted to do. It was easier than I expected. It was hard at times, but easy for the most part once I got comfortable and started having fun, whether it was a funny scene or a deep scene.

You have such a great relationship in the film with Craig Robinson on screen. What was it like getting to know him and work with someone on that level?

Markees Christmas: Craig is my much older big brother. In the film, he plays my father, but we just got along like siblings. That’s my boy. He’s such a great actor, and just someone who it’s easy to be in awe around him when you see what he can do. I liked Craig before, but after working with him I am forever a fan of Craig Robinson. Being that close to someone that great was amazing to a point where I would just follow him around on set and just scoot up on next to him. I became a super fan. Wherever Craig was, I was right there.

Finally, I gotta say that sitting across from you now, you look almost totally different from the kid you were just two years ago. Is it weird looking back at the film now seeing how much you have matured physically?

Markees Christmas: (laughs) It’s so weird to look back at what I looked like just two years ago. I got taller. I lost most of my Morris fat. I still got a little bit of that Heidelberg food in my gut that will probably be with me for the rest of my life, though. (laughs) I’m going to try to push the rest of the baby fat out in the gym, but keep some of my memories from the film with me at all times. But looking back on myself now, I honestly have no idea what I did to lose all that weight. That’s the biggest thing in the world that I think about when I watch old videos of myself. If you watch my oldest videos, you’ll see that I used to be really skinny, just, like, pencil thin, and then sometime around the sixth grade I just let myself go and I have no idea what happened. Actually, I think that was about the time that my mom started giving me a daily allowance to get on the bus and go to school, and she always gave me an extra dollar to get something on the way to school, and that dollar always went to Flaming Hot Cheetos every day, and that’s when the Morris body came along. (laughs)