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Markees Christmas - Film
Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
Markees Christmas
Makes His
Playful Film Debut
Teen
newcomer Markees Christmas stars as Morris Gentry in a new coming-of-age movie
titled “Morris From America.” The idea here is that Morris is a 13-year-old who
has just relocated with his single father Curtis, played by Craig Robinson, to
Heidelberg, Germany. Morris’s rap skills leave a lot to be desired but he
fancies himself to be the next Notorious B.I.G. To complicate matters further,
Morris quickly falls hard for his cool, rebellious, 15-year-old classmate
Katrin played by German actress Lina Keller. Morris sets out against all odds
to take the hip-hop world by storm and win the girl of his dreams. The film was
written and directed by Chad Hartigan and won two prizes at this year’s
Sundance film Festival i.e., the Waldo Salt Screening Award and a Special Jury
Award for Robinson. This film is Robinson’s first dramatic role for which he
has received great reviews. Robinson is best known as Daryl Philban on the
smash hit NBC-TV show “The Office.”
 |
| Morris (MarkeesChristmas) meets Katrin (Lina Keller) |
Markees
Christmas is a native of Los Angeles and is currently a high school student. He
began acting with a school play in the 6th grade which led to acting
in a series of channel 101 shorts. With such an unusual last name, is he razed
a lot for it? Christmas laughs, “As far as school, everybody on the staff calls
me Mr. Christmas. People in the town that I live in, call me Christmas when
they see me. I mean It’s just something that you catch regularly when you have
a name like that.” One can imagine how stupid crazy it gets during the actual
Christmas holidays. Christmas laughs, “They like to do it. They think it’s
funny. Once I’m done eating my Thanksgiving dinner, I’m just like I want to go
to sleep until Christmas is over.”
 |
| Morris and Katrin talk |
Christmas secured his role in Morris via regular appearances in an
online project called Channel 101 where anyone can shoot homemade shorts and
upload them. How did he become aware of Channel 101? Christmas explains, “I was
with my mentor from the big brother program for like two years before that. He
never told me about it. That was something he enjoyed by himself. I didn’t have
anything to do with film back then. I wasn’t even thinking about that back
then. I was doing real bad in the 6th grade and they basically told
me there’s a school play coming up and if you don’t participate you’re going to
be in the 6th grade again. I said that can’t happen to me so I ended
up participating in the school play “A Rasin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry.
Of course, it was revised a little bit because we were in the 6th
grade. I tried out for the part of Travis the son which doesn’t have a lot of
lines. That’s what I was going for so I could get to 7th grade. They
lied to me and told me we already have a Travis. It’s Walter or you’re going to
be in 6th grade again.
 |
| L-R Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas |
I took
Walter, I got my lines down, I practice my lines with my mom and anybody I
could find. I wanted to question why would they want to give me this part? I
don’t even know why they would trust me with this part. I’m not experienced;
this is my first time acting. I didn’t know that’s what I was going to end up
doing. I wasn’t expecting it but it came out better than I imagined it to.”
Christmas started to shoot the small Channel 101 shorts which he used to
audition for Morris and he got the part. As they say, the rest is history.
 |
| Markees Christmas |
©
2016 Rych McCain Media/Syndication TM
(You
DID Hear It From Me!)
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