This interview is part of Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors series. Watch the full video interview now at CNN.com/Watch (or on the CNN app) and on Variety’s YouTube channel starting at 11:59 pm ET.
Tracy Morgan, the comedy veteran beloved for his work on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock,” has returned to the spotlight with the Tina Fey-produced NBC sitcom “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.” It’s been 12 years since Morgan nearly lost his life in a six-vehicle car crash, and, at 57, he instantly assumes the role of loving, zany mentor upon meeting 28-year-old Marcello Hernández, who recently wrapped his fourth season of “SNL” and released his debut stand-up special, “American Boy,” on Netflix. In a no-holds-barred conversation, the two swap stories about Studio 8H, and Morgan counsels Hernández on his gut health and the number of children he should father.
Tracy Morgan: I like you already, man. You regular. No extra cheese, no pepperoni. Just a slice and a Coke. Let me ask you something. What was your audition like?
Marcello Hernández: Man, I was freaking out. I was calling my mom. She had quit cigarettes for so many years, and she started smoking when I got the audition because she was so freaked out. Did you come in with confidence?
Morgan: It was nerve-racking, but I knew what I had to do. I was on “Def Jam” before. I was on “Martin.” And then Barry Katz got me an audition, and I wasn’t going to do it. And then my wife said, “You know who was on ‘Saturday Night Live’? Eddie Murphy.”
Hernández: I want to ask you about your “Def Jam” set. Do you remember the joke about living next to a Puerto Rican family? Bro, that killed me. I’ve never heard anybody bring up garlic, paprika, adobo [in a comedy set].
Morgan: I was the voice for a whole generation. Nobody was saying, “my baby mother.” Latinos are here, and they not going nowhere.
Hernández: [Looking into the camera] Amen. Print it. Headline. Say it again, Tracy.
Morgan: [Looking into the camera] Latinos is here. They not going nowhere.
Hernández: [Repeats Morgan’s point in Spanish] Pa ningún lao. No vamos pa partes. Por si acaso.
Hernández: And when I heard you in that Def Jam —
[They both sing the chorus of “El Africano” by Wilfrido Vargas.]
Hernández: That was playing in my house [growing up].
Hernández: I know! I met her earlier. We spoke Spanish.
Morgan: I was so happy when you got on the show. I was there many years before you, but if I was with you, it would’ve been me and you. You are basically me on the show.
Hernández: I think about that a lot. The people that I look up to in comedy, I wish we were in school together. You got in trouble in school? I talked too much. They told me I did mischief.
Morgan: You know who gave you that voice? They couldn’t control that because God gave that to you.
Hernández: And now I’m getting paid for mischief.
Morgan: You know how much them teachers probably making right now?
Morgan: I can’t stand teachers. You know why? Because they have a ceiling. They have a limit. That’s all they ever going to be. I teach my kids: Sky’s the limit. You know where you at?
Morgan: Believe it. You did that. You! Me! We did it. And we ain’t finished. What was the 50th [season] like, seeing all those celebrities?
Hernández: I didn’t know how to talk to Eddie Murphy, because I always wanted to be physical like him. I was nervous, and I saw the sneakers he was wearing, and I was like, “Oh, I have those.” And then he looked at me and said, “You got them because they look cool. I got them because they support my body.”
Tuesday [at “SNL”] is writing night. That’s when you’re at peak creativity. That’s the only time you have creative control, and you hope on Wednesday, your stuff is laying on the right side of the board, because if it’s on the left, you in trouble. When I wasn’t in the show [because my sketches were rejected] — I got a wife and kids at home. They want to see me on TV. I would sit in my dressing room and play a song and I would cry. Then I would have to go up on the stage and fake it and say goodbye. And smile when your heart is breaking.
Morgan: That’s how bad I wanted it. I’m still like that. You know why we do comedy? Necessity. But once you make it, then you surround yourself with people that need to do this as a necessity. You might not have no bills to pay, because you made it. But they got bills to pay, so they got to be funny. I got hit by a Walmart truck, so with the money I got, I don’t need to do this. But I surround myself with people that need to do this and love it.
I’m rooting for you. Eddie’s rooting for you. Let me see your hands. Put them out. [They touch hands.] They soft. You know why they soft? Because all you do is count money and touch women.
Morgan: Soft. I don’t do nothing else. All I do is touch my wife and count money. You know what I want to do with my life? I want to do karate and get girls pregnant. You ain’t got no kids?
Morgan: Well, you better stop pulling out. Told that to my son. “Stop pulling out. I want to see my grandkids. Anytime I turn around, you pulling out. You got to stop that.”
Hernández: You got some Latina mom energy right now.
Morgan: I’m trying to break Bob Marley’s record.
Morgan: I got about 20 that I know about. I’m trying to birth a nation. This kid is learning a lot right now.
Morgan: People love characters — Domingo is a favorite. But I want you to go to the “Weekend Update” desk, and I don’t want you to wear no mustache or nothing. Use your regular name. That’s what Eddie told me. Because you don’t want to be going through the airport for the next 20 years and people call you Domingo. That’s not what your mother named you. When I go to the airport, they go, “Hey, Tracy.” Eddie showed me how to be a household name. Do your characters; that’s great. But when you do “Update,” do you.
Morgan: “SNL”? It was the time of my life. I was young. I didn’t know anything, and that’s where I learned. That’s why I say Lorne Michaels is like my dad. My dad died in ’87, but he was working through Lorne. He said, “Take care of my boy.” Just like you. You’re learning now. You’re getting better and better. What was your audition tape like?
Hernández: Me talking about my mom. She escaped Cuba when she was 12. So I said that you can’t have a bad day if your mom escaped Cuba. Every day, I would wake up and my mom would be making breakfast like, “Have a great day at school, Marcello. Remember, I free you.”
Morgan: What was the very first thing you ever did on “SNL”?
Hernández: This thing about how it’s more fun to watch Latino baseball players than the white dudes. It was like, “Who would you rather watch play baseball? Kyle from Kentucky or a guy they call Papa and no one knows why? When a white guy goes up to the plate, he says hello to the pitcher and just waits for the ball. The Dominican guy puts the sign of the cross on the plate — ‘In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ — and his hips are so crazy, the whole stadium is pregnant. And then he hit a home run. When he gets back to home plate, he thanks everybody that he’s ever met in his entire life. ‘Thank you to my mother and my father and my sister and my brother and everybody I ever met and the guy in the bodega that gave me the platanito that one time.'”
Morgan: You bring the Latin community. I want you to always understand this: When you go onstage, you got a million motherfuckers with you. When I do stand-up, I’m brave up there because I’m not by myself. I got my ancestors with me. That’s why I [created the character] Dominican Lou. I brought my life. I was brought up in the Bronx. And you see who I travel with.
Hernández: Let the record show that Tracy Morgan is rolling with Dominicans.
You know who’s one of my friends that I love so much? Ardie Fuqua.
Morgan: That’s my guy. He was in the accident with me. He was in a coma for 20 days. I was in it for 10 days. We did a show together that night in Delaware, and we got hit. That truck was doing 70 miles per hour with 85,000 pounds of frozen food in the back. And my friend Jimmy Mack — God bless — his neck was broke so bad his face was on his back.
Hernández: I speak for all of us when I say we are so happy and so blessed that you’re here, man.
Morgan: Thank you. Lorne must have called my ex-wife about a thousand times to see if I was out the coma.
Hernández: You’re working with Harry Potter. You’re working with Daniel Radcliffe [on “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”].
Morgan: It ain’t too often you get to be a cool dad. All my kids were “Harry Potter” fans, so I’m a cool dad.
Hernández: You’ve always been a cool dad, bro. You’re Tracy Morgan.
Morgan: I’m just happy that Tina and Rob [Carlock] and Sam Means believed in me and gave me another shot. We’re all from “Saturday Night Live,” and then we did “30 Rock,” and now we back in the saddle again. It’s a very funny show, and I love it.
Morgan: He was on [“SNL”] when I hosted for the first time. He was spooked. But that’s how I was with Tim Meadows and Will Ferrell. I went through a phase where I felt culturally isolated. And then one morning, about 3 in the morning, Lorne Michaels called me into his office and said, [imitating Michaels’ voice] “Tracy, I hired you not because you’re Black, but because you’re funny.” And that’s when I let go and let God. Just like you. You might have felt a little culturally isolated, but no. You belong, brother. You’re at the top. There’s new cast members that you’re going to have to support and give advice to.
Hernández: Kenan [Thompson] did that for me early on.
Morgan: Who do you think did it for him? [Gestures at himself.] Have fun. Stay funny. If I have to give any comedian advice, I just say “stay funny.”
Morgan: Or go work at the post office. There’s plenty of work there. Somebody got to lick those stamps.
Hernández: That’s what they’re doing at the post office?
Morgan: They got to lick stamps, man. You don’t want that. Don’t you ever let nothing get in your way. You’re old-school funny. Carol Burnett. Jackie Gleason. You gonna be on the talk shows. I just did Jimmy Kimmel last night. I was talking about my colonoscopy.
Morgan: He was down there fiddling around. You gonna get your butthole checked when you in your 50s.
Morgan: You better! You don’t want to find out you got no cancer down there or nothing. You better go get checked out. I just felt pregnant. They was doing something more than colonoscopy.
Yo, I want to tell you something, man. I love you, man.
Hernández: Oh, man. Tracy, I love you, bro. I’m serious.