NEW YORK--Life is sweet for Tracy Morgan. The 40 year-old comedian perches on his black leather sofa as his 3-month-old Cane Corso puppy, Sugar, nuzzles and licks a pricey Tod’s handbag left on the couch.
“She’s a black dog,” Mr. Morgan cracked. “She’s going for the pocketbook.”
He has plenty to smile about.
Here, on the third floor of an unflashy Soho building, Mr. Morgan lives in a spacious loft surrounded by his companions.
By the front door is a tank housing a tarantula and a scorpion. Near the far wall, a shark and eel swim in their cozy home.
A boa and a python reside on the upper level of the apartment.
Sugar and her fellow pup, a male Corso named Max, sit by the front door, greeting visitors with copious kisses.
The space is lived-in and comfortable: Yes, there’s a requisite flat-screen TV, but there’s also a plastic tub full of dog food.
Mr. Morgan looks around his home with pride.
Everything you see, he said, is the “result of my hard work and my best thinking. My life? I’m just following through. I was already selected to win. I have a Plan A and a Plan B.
“You know what my Plan B is? There is no Plan B. I had to make it. Three kids and a wife on welfare when I first started? I had to make it.
“Things are not bad. I have a long way to go.”
Mr. Morgan is on his way.
Last week he received his first Emmy Award nomination for playing loopy, rich, emotionally unstable comedian Tracy Jordan on NBC’s critically-beloved but viewer-challenged situation-comedy, “30 Rock.”
On Friday, he’s starring in his first animated movie, Disney’s “G-Force,” as Blaster, a member of an elite squad of heroic guinea pigs. He’s spending his summer shooting Kevin Smith’s “A Couple of Dicks,” a buddy comedy co-starring Mr. Morgan and Bruce Willis as two cops.
His memoir, “I’m the New Black,” arrives Oct. 20, and, on Nov. 6, he performs at Carnegie Hall as part of the New York Comedy Festival.
“You won’t find anyone who’s more eager, willing and ready to step into the spotlight,” Mr. Smith said.
“He’s spent the last 10 to 12 years ready for this moment, for his close-up,” Mr. Smith went on. “Everything is coming up Tracy. He brings such an insane enthusiasm.”
“He’s one of the most brilliant ad-libbers on the planet,” Mr. Smith added. “Tracy is this amazing comedic weapon that you turn on and step away and turn the camera on.”
Not bad for a guy who used to make headlines for drunken-driving arrests instead of awards nominations.
Ask Mr. Morgan about his suddenly hot and seemingly stable career, and he vacillates between wonder and bravado.
“You want to know what happiness is?,” he asked, rhetorically. “It’s having something to look forward to, and I have all that stuff to look forward to.”
“Right now, I’m just basking in the glory,” the comedian remarked. “I’m just enjoying my time in the spotlight.”
In fact, now that he has cash in the bank, Mr. Morgan jokes that he has plans beyond the silver screen.
“I might buy Coney Island,” he quipped. “That’s the hardest part: to get the money to catch up with the funny.”
It’s the latter word that people who know Mr. Morgan use to describe him.
In person, he easily rattles off jokes. Tell him about a well-worn pickup line heard on the streets of New York, and he suggests the guilty party join the dating site, eharmony.com.
“He’s hysterical,” said “G-Force” producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “He’s the funniest human going. Whatever comes out of his mouth is brilliant.”
“You want someone in animation who can take what is on the written page and embellish it,” the movie producer continued. “He’s got a really quick mind. He’s really clever. His humor comes from reality.
“It’s human observation. He’s brilliant at capturing what’s around him.”
Before “30 Rock,” Mr. Morgan was best known for his work on “Saturday Night Live.”
After joining the show in 1996, he broke out as fey talk-show host Brian Fellow, frontman of “Safari Planet,” and futuristic gabber Astronaut Jones.
He segued to his own series, “The Tracy Mr. Morgan Show,” in 2003, but it was canceled after one season.
Mr. Morgan returned to “Saturday Night Live” until 2006 before joining “30 Rock” the same year.
Tina Fey, “30 Rock” creator, producer and star, who worked with Mr. Morgan on “Saturday Night Live,” hired him for the show because he had a “quality that you can’t learn and you can’t buy.”
“That quality is that, when he enters a scene, you’re just happy to see him,” she said. “You could feel that back at ‘Saturday Night Live.’
“He’d come out to do a feature on ‘Weekend Update,’ and the audience was on his side before he even opened his mouth.”
“Other comics would kill to have that,” Miss Fey said.
However, his achievements on the small screen were almost overshadowed by his personal troubles.
He was twice arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, in 2006 and 2005. In 2007, he wore an alcohol-monitoring bracelet because of the arrests.
Mr. Morgan--who is divorced from his high school sweetheart, with whom he has a daughter and three sons--said he quit drinking more than a year ago, partially because of a talk from Miss Fey.
“She told me to fly right,” Mr. Morgan said. “Tina Fey is down like four flat tires. I love her. That’s my girl, ‘Tina Fey-Fey.’
“She’s the coolest. That’s my sister from another mother with a different color.”
Miss Fey downplays her influence.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever ‘straightened him out,’ ” she demurred, “but we’ve had some interesting talks.”
Mr. Morgan understands that, given his past, it’s easy to confuse him with the lovably insane character Tina Fey created for him.
“Tracy Jordan is a part of Tracy Morgan,” the comedian said. “Tracy Morgan isn’t a part of Tracy Jordan. Tracy Jordan is just a figment of somebody’s imagination.
“Tracy Mr. Morgan isn’t as unstable as Tracy Jordan. This is weird for me to talk in third person. Tracy Morgan doesn’t run down the street in his underwear. I don’t party no more.”
His sense of humor is off the wall.
“It’s out there,” Mr. Smith said. “His jokes are not the standard jokes.
“He does pitch-perfect renditions of dialogue from all the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies.”
“The wackiness is not gone completely,” the movie producer went on, “but, man, he comes to work. This dude knows this is his shot.”
Mr. Morgan said he still goes out, but stays away from alcohol.
“I get my party on,” he commented. “The alcohol is dead now, but I still like to have a good time.
“I’m more professional now. I’m more mature now. When I’m filming a movie, it’s like a boxer: no sex, no partying, no none of that.”
“I like to focus on what I’m doing,” the comedian added. “As you start getting nominated for Emmy’s and start doing movies with people, the expectations start to go up a little more.
“I’m not going to falter to that. I’m just going to stay funny, stay regular.”
