The Last OG's Dante Hoagland says co-star Tracy Morgan is like a big uncle while Tiffany Haddish is like mom
TBS’ critically-acclaimed comedy series, ‘The Last OG’ is all set to begin its third season. The show follows ex-convict Tray Barker (Tracy Morgan), who after serving 15 years in prison returns to Brooklyn to find that his old neighborhood has been heavily gentrified. He also finds that his ex-girlfriend Shannon 'Shay' Birkeland (Tiffany Haddish) is now raising their children with a white man named Josh Birkeland (Ryan Gaul).
Dante Hoagland, who plays Tracy’s son Shahzad, recently had a casual chat with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) about the show, working with a comedy legend like Morgan, being a child actor and how that affects his education, social isolation and more.
Talking about being cooped up inside due to the novel coronavirus pandemic that has caused a near-global lockdown, Dante said, things were working out pretty well. “I'm mainly just focusing on my schoolwork. So, I'm still in school ‘cause I'm homeschooled,” he said, adding that he was mainly focusing on schoolwork and watching movies, “to perfect my craft”.
Dante, entered the entertainment industry at the young age of six, his first paid gig was on ‘Sesame Street’, he said of homeschooling, “I actually went to an elementary school when I was younger. At that time I only had specific teachers and they all understood what I did. They all understood what my craft was, so they made an exception whenever I had to leave to go to New York for an audition. But as I started to get older, I knew that I would have to transition into different types of schools. They wouldn't understand what I did. So that's when my mom decided to pull me out and decided to go into online schooling.”
Asked if he missed the experience of a regular school, Dante said, “It's not like I really don't get to see any of my friends or anything. Cause my town is a very small town, so we're all around each other, and we all see each other whenever I go out. So, being online homeschooled is pretty fun for the most part,” adding, “It's just, you don't get the certain advantages that you used to get when you're in school. That's all it is.”
‘The Last OG’ is not the first time Dante and Morgan have worked together, after all, he was also part of Tina Fey's hit NBC comedy, ‘30 Rock’. And while he never had scenes with Morgan during the length of his stay on the show, he does have a fun anecdote about Morgan from that time. Because his dressing room was not prepared, he had to be accommodated into Morgan’s dressing room. “So we were actually in his dressing room. And then once I got done filming the episode, I actually wrote him a letter. And I told him, ‘Thank you for letting me use his dressing room’. And I told him that one day I will be a successful actor. And I, I look up to him and stuff like that.”
Asked if Morgan remembered him from then, “When I talked to him about it, do you remember that little boy that did ‘30 Rock’, he remembers all that. Yeah.”
Dante, unsurprisingly, seemed enamored with Morgan. “Tracy, he is amazing. He is absolutely amazing. He is somebody I definitely look up to. He's always given me things to learn. He's always telling me to perfect my craft more, make sure I'm studying the set. He’s like a big uncle to me. He's actually funny on the camera and without the camera.”
Unsurprisingly, again, Dante said that people on the sets had a difficult time keeping a straight face whenever Morgan was there, even when the cameras were on. “He does it on purpose too. He tries to make me laugh when we're doing a serious scene. We definitely do have a hard time [keeping a straight face], but we get through it.”
Talking about his acting process and working with Morgan, Dante said, "In the years, as I progressed as an actor, I actually tried to study improv. I knew that I was working with Tracy Morgan and Tiffany Haddish. I knew I would have to improvise just a little bit more. So [Morgan] would test me in certain scenes and he'll test anybody -- just to kind of help throw a line out there. Even if the scene has ended, and if you're still rolling, we have to still stay in that moment. And he'll just say something and we'll just piggyback off of what he says. So I think I progressed as an actor. I've actually got better at improv."
"Tiffany [Haddish' really acts like my real mother on the set and off the set. She's absolutely hilarious. She's always trying to look out for me and my co-star Taylor Mosbey. She's just a really fun person to work with," he further said.
Dante told MEAWW about how his character on the show, Shahzad, had big things going on for him in the third season: " I'm coming out more, trying to introduce myself as maybe, you know, a little Tracy. Trying to imitate and dress like Tracy. Trying to maybe imitate cousin Bobby (Allen Maldonado) and how he acts, trying to get a girlfriend. I finally tell a girl that I liked her."
Dante said, "I think this season is going to be very great. I think that hopefully, we can get a season four, and I feel like this, this season right here, it's going to be very great."
