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Craig Robinson gets serious in Sundance winner 'Morris From America'

Let it be known that Craig Robinson, who played Scranton warehouse foreman Darryl Philbin on eight seasons of the hit sitcom The Office, who witnessed the stoner apocalypse in This Is the End, and who traveled to the future and the past in a couple of Hot Tub Time Machines, can get serious.

Craig Robinson in "Morris From America." Before he started a stand-up career and moved to Hollywood, he was a teacher in Chicago, with a master's in education. The experience was useful for his role and with his co-star.
Craig Robinson in "Morris From America." Before he started a stand-up career and moved to Hollywood, he was a teacher in Chicago, with a master's in education. The experience was useful for his role and with his co-star.Read moreA24 Films

Let it be known that Craig Robinson, who played Scranton warehouse foreman Darryl Philbin on eight seasons of the hit sitcom The Office, who witnessed the stoner apocalypse in This Is the End, and who traveled to the future and the past in a couple of Hot Tub Time Machines, can get serious.

And seriously good.

In Morris From America, now at the PFS Roxy, Robinson stars as Curtis Gentry, a recent widower who has moved to Germany with his 13-year-old son - Morris, played winningly by newcomer Markees Christmas. Robinson's character is a soccer coach, he has been hired by a Heidelberg team, and he and his son share an apartment, share the grief over their common loss - and share in the discomfort of being strangers in a strange land.

"I've made a few movies, the James Brown movie Get on Up [Robinson was saxophonist Maceo Parker], an early TV movie called Play'd that definitely had a dramatic side, some dramatic content," he says on the phone from Los Angeles.

"But I had never gone to this level, this depth, before. . . . I mean, I cried in this one. . . . There was something definitely deeper to this character."

Written and directed by Chad Hartigan, Morris From America premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, surprising everyone - including Robinson - by winning two prizes: the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Hartigan, and a special jury prize for dramatic performance for, yup, the stand-up comedian, musician, and Judd Apatow trouper who got his start taking improv classes at Chicago's Second City.

"My mind was blown," Robinson says about his experience at the fest. "From the start, the reviews were great. I try not to put too much into that, whether it's good or bad, you just got to keep going . . . but I'll tell you it did feel good. And then to win the Sundance award - amazing."

Did he give an acceptance speech?

"I did. And what's crazy was I'm writing a speech like it was the Oscars - 'I'd like to thank so-and-so and such-and-such. . . . It's a journey getting here. . . .' But people were standing up going, 'Yo! All right!' Drinks at the bar!'

"I was like, Oh, man, I've got to figure Sundance out. It was a party."

In Morris From America, Robinson's character has to figure out how to be both a friend and a parent, a sage adult and a sympathetic sidekick, to his son. Morris, a black urban kid in a quaint, picturesque Teutonic town, falls hard for a rebellious 15-year-old German girl (Lina Keller). She flirts and befriends him. He tags along like a puppy, setting himself up for heartbreak.

"The movie is about falling in love, and what love will make you do," Robinson says.

The movie is also very much about the struggles of adolescence, about finding your voice (literally - Morris wants to be a rapper), about the bonds between father and son, the challenges of parenting.

Before Robinson ventured into show business, pursuing a stand-up career and moving to Hollywood, he was a teacher in a Chicago elementary school, with a master's degree in education. It was work he was able to use in Morris From America.

"When you're teaching, you play so many different roles to a lot of different kids," he says. "You are a counselor, parent, doctor. . . . Fortunately, Markees is a really cool guy, really appreciates the opportunity he found himself in, and he was a fan of mine. So there was a mutual respect when we met. And all of that played a part in getting along, in our looking like we were father and son."

Robinson says that Christmas, who was 15 when Hartigan cast him, already knew Robinson's work when they met. Not just The Office, but the raunchy, R-rated work, too.

"He knew some of my stuff. He just didn't know my name," Robinson says with a laugh. "He'll tell you that himself. I think he knew Hot Tub, and I'm not sure exactly what else. He was aware of some of the things, things that he definitely shouldn't have been watching at his age."

Robinson, 44, says the relationship Curtis has with Morris in the film - encouraging him to pursue his dreams of hip-hop stardom - is not the same kind of relationship he had with his dad, a Chicago lawyer.

"When my father heard me say that I wanted to do comedy, it wasn't like, 'Oh, awesome!' There were some heavy discussions. . . .

"I remember one time he said, 'You're going to lose that good job.' But the blinders were on, and all I could see was getting up on stage and doing comedy."

Eventually, Robinson's father came around.

"Especially now. . . . He can't really complain any more because he's got people coming up to him when they find out who his son is, and my mother will be at the grocery store and say to the clerk, 'Do you watch The Office? Well my son is Darryl. . . .' "

Robinson also landed his own sitcom, the short-lived Mr. Robinson. And he can be seen on the cutting-edge new series Mr. Robot as Ray, the webmaster who trades in prostitution, drugs, and arms.

Next up? Table 19, a romantic comedy starring Anna Kendrick, from Robinson's old Office director Jeffrey Blitz. Most of Robinson's scenes in the film, coming in January, are with Lisa Kudrow, who plays his wife.

One of the actor's first professional gigs when he moved to L.A. was a part in an episode of Friends, opposite, yes, Kudrow. "She wants to get her name changed, and I'm the government worker, the clerk, she comes to," he says.

"She didn't remember, of course, but I let her know, like, 'Hey, we've worked together before.' "

So Table 19, a reunion?

"It's a one-sided reunion, because why would she remember somebody who had three lines, five lines opposite her all those years ago?

"I did have a pretty big Afro back then, though."

srea@phillynews.com

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@Steven_Rea