Lamorne Morris

Lamorne Morris (born August 14, 1983) is an American actor and comedian. He has played the roles of Winston Bishop in the Fox sitcom New Girl (2011–2018), cartoonist Keef Knight in the Hulu comedy Woke (2020–2022), and State Trooper Whitley "Witt" Farr in the fifth season of Fargo, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award. He has also starred as Jerrod in Barbershop: The Next Cut, Officer Mikey Jameson in The Christmas Chronicles (2018) and comedian Garrett Morris in Saturday Night (2024).

Morris has also had supporting roles in the comedies Game Night (2018), Yesterday (2019), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) and the upcoming Jumanji: Open World (2026).

He plays Robbie Robertson in the Prime Video superhero series Spider-Noir and will be voicing the titular character of the planned Paramount+ animated show Garfield.

Early life Morris grew up on the South Side of Chicago. As a teenager he moved to the western suburb of Glen Ellyn, where he attended Glenbard South High School. Attorney and political candidate Qasim Rashid was a classmate of his. His mother worked for the United States Postal Service. 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 in 2003 where he studied theatre and received the Chris Farley 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 1950s-nostalgia-themed restaurant where the servers act rude to the diners. Morris did not appear until the second episode - originally, Damon Wayans Jr. was a member of the cast, in the role of Coach. However, Wayans's 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's 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. 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 (2018), Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), Yesterday (2019), Bloodshot (2020), and Desperados (2020).

During the COVID-19 lockdown, 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 and Madison Hu. 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, distributed by IHeartRadio, in January 2022. Morris and Simone went on to host the podcast The Mess Around with Hannah and Lamorne. In 2022, he was cast as North Dakota State Trooper Whitley "Witt" Farr in the fifth season of the FX black comedy-crime drama anthology series Fargo, which premiered in November 2023 and concluded in January 2024. For his performance he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

In July 2024, it was announced Morris would play Robbie Robertson in the Spider-Noir television show on Amazon Prime Video. Filming began in September 2024 in Los Angeles.

In March 2026, Morris was announced to be voicing Garfield in upcoming animated series on Paramount+.

Personal life Comedian Garrett Morris (no relation), whom Morris played in Saturday Night, has had a large impact on his career path as an entertainer. Morris is a baseball, basketball, and bowling fan. He supports semi-retired professional bowler Pete Weber and the Chicago White Sox. Morris has also stated that every room in his house has something to do with basketball.

Filmography

Film

Television

Audio

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