Baltimore surprises cult director Chris Morris
Above: Chris Morris at work preparing a scene in Baltimore for “Veep.”
Chris Morris, the elusive British comic and cult film director, returned to London yesterday apparently filled with happy thoughts about Baltimore.
Having spent the week directing episode seven of Veep (a black comedy about a U.S. senator thrust into the vice presidency scheduled to air next fall on HBO), Morris took a few minutes from filming Saturday to talk to The Brew.
A gangly man with medusa hair and a prominent facial birthmark, the 49-year-old said he thoroughly enjoyed his stay in Baltimore. Having never been to the city before, he didn’t know what to expect. He said he loved the “diversity of the neighborhoods” and the friendliness of the people. Fells Point reminded him of the mother country. “It’s a place of unanticipated surprises,” he said.
Pleasant banter, indeed, from a man whom the British tabloid, Daily Mail, once dubbed “the most loathed man on TV” for tackling such taboo subjects as pedophilia and incest, but whose fans deify him, according to The Observer, as Britain’s “only comic genius.”
Chris Morris in Charles Village on Saturday. (Photo by Mark Reutter)
He’s perhaps best known for anchoring the spoof TV shows, Brass Eye and The Day Today, and hosting improvised conversations and unsettling sketches in Why Bother? and Jaaaaam. Last year, he directed his first feature-length film, Four Lions, about a group of inept terrorists.
Morris, who stays out of the public limelight, conceded that he might be the person fitting these descriptions (minus the genius bit) before turning his attention to the day’s script.
Morris is collaborating with Veep creator and executive producer, Armando Iannucci, on the HBO series, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, the senator turned vice-president, and Tony Hale playing Gary, her top aide.
On Saturday, Morris wrapped up an episode at a Charles Village rowhouse (masquerading as a Capitol Hill pied-à-terre) where explosive personal secrets unravel amid Gary’s meticulously arranged kitchen and back yard.