Mockumentary format allows ensemble cast to experiment with distinct comedy styles.
Jalyn Hall has learned from veteran comedian Tracy Morgan, both on and off screen.
Show aims to present relatable Black characters and families, not just punchlines.
The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins is bringing Black familial foolishness to NBC for a second season, and BOSSIP has all the deets.
Source: Paras Griffin/ Robby Klein/ Getty
As previously reported, the show may center on disgraced football star Reggie Dinkins (Tracy Morgan) fumbling his way toward redemption, but beneath the mockumentary is the story of a Black family just trying to figure things out.
Ahead of the show’s season two premiere Monday, Nov. 2, at 8:30 p.m. on NBC, Jalyn Hall, who stars as Reggie’s son Carmelo, and co-executive producer Phil Augusta Jackson spoke with BOSSIP about bringing the Dinkins crew back for more copious cackles, balancing Blackness with belly laughs, and learning from comedy king Tracy Morgan.
According to co-executive producer Phil Augusta Jackson, the writers are approaching the new season with a goal to build on the characters audiences already know and push the comedy even further.
Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
“Season one was super funny. You’re getting to know everybody,” Jackson said. “Season two, we’re just looking to heighten everything and bring more laughs.”
Created by Robert Carlock and Sam Means, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracy Morgan as Reggie, a disgraced former football star attempting to repair his public image with the help of award-winning documentary filmmaker Arthur Tobin, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Reggie soon learns that fixing his reputation also means dealing with the people who knew him long before he needed a comeback.
The cast also includes Erika Alexander as Reggie’s ex-wife, Monica; Precious Way as his girlfriend, Brina; Bobby Moynihan as his longtime friend and former teammate, Rusty; and Hall as Carmelo.
The show’s mockumentary format gives that ensemble room to play, and Jackson told BOSSIP that much of that experimentation starts in the writers room.
“A lot of being in the writer’s room is pitching and kind of performing jokes that could potentially be in the script,” he explained. “We’ll be pitching jokes in Jalyn’s voice, in Precious’ voice, in Daniel’s voice and Bobby’s voice and in Tracy’s voice.”
Each performer, Jackson said, brings a distinctly different approach to comedy.
“Each one of their instruments are so, so, so different, but so specific and unique and great,” he said. “It makes the show a lot of fun to come up with the stories and a lot of fun to come up with the jokes.”
For Hall, Reggie Dinkins has also given him an opportunity to show audiences a different side of his range. The 18-year-old actor earned critical acclaim for his performance as Emmett Till in Till and has since appeared in projects including Genius: MLK/X and Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist. As Carmelo, he gets to be considerably less serious, and it’s one of the things he enjoys most about the character.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
Hall told BOSSIP that he considered himself funny before joining the series, but admitted that there’s a difference between making your friends laugh and doing the same thing on-camera.
On Reggie Dinkins, he’s been able to study his scene partners to hone his skills.
“I think that having a friend group of like-minded individuals can kind of sell you the illusion that you’re funny,” he joked. “You’re funny within your group, and you go out and you’re like, ‘Oh, maybe they didn’t get that joke.’”
“I definitely studied my predecessors, well, my castmates now, and really just understood all there was that was laid out before me and kind of tried to integrate my own style, my own vibrance and energy into it,” Hall said. “I feel like I’m nowhere near my peak funniness, I suppose, my peak comedy ability yet. I’m just taking in all this information.”
He also added that working alongisde Tracy Morgan has been a particularly valuable education, and added that what he’s learned from his TV father extends beyond acting.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
“Getting to play his son has been very informational in more ways than one,” Hall told BOSSIP. “Not just about the craft, not just about comedy and its many cogs in the machine that it is, not just about the film industry and the amazing jewels and gems that he has to drop about that, but just integrity as a person.”
Before filming began in New York, Hall told BOSSIP that Morgan invited the cast to his home for dinner for an intimate evening in his element. It’s there that Hall learned he was generous, genuine and “pro-family,” qualities he’s gotten to observe while working alongside him.
“To have somebody like that that you see day to day and that you work with and you share a bit of your vulnerable creative space with is truly a gift,” he added.
That sense of family is also central to what Hall believes Reggie Dinkins can contribute to NBC’s long history of comedy ranging from The Office to Saturday Night Live.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
The rising star said he hopes viewers recognize pieces of their own Black families in the Dinkins clan.
“You can turn on your TV and be like, ‘Yo, this is Tracy, this is my uncle, this is my cousin. This is Monica, this is my girlfriend that I go out for drinks with. This is Carmelo, this is somebody that I go to school with,’” Hall said.
He added that Morgan has talked about wanting to make a show that brings families together to watch because they recognize the people onscreen.
“They’re gonna watch it because they see the people that they’re surrounded by,” Hall said.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
Jackson also sees that familiarity as one of the show’s strengths, but believes its approach to the mockumentary gives it an identity of its own.
“Family sitcom is not a new concept,” Jackson said. “The familiarity of it, I hope that draws people in. But then what I hope keeps people around, as far as legacy, is the uniqueness of the show.”
That distinction comes largely through Daniel Radcliffe’s, Arthur. Unlike the mostly unseen crews behind the cameras in other mockumentaries, Arthur is both making the documentary and becoming increasingly involved in Reggie’s life.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
“I don’t think we’ve quite seen the director of the documentary being a character in the show and then essentially a part of the family,” Jackson said. “That makes the format that is a very, very familiar, almost standard format nowadays feel extremely, extremely unique.”
The comedy also gives Jackson and the writers another challenge: creating Black characters who are funny without making their Blackness the punchline.
Jackson, whose credits include Grand Crew, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Insecure and Key & Peele, said the writers start by focusing on who each character is as a person.
“I think, in general and on this show, it is looking at the human and what they bring to the table,” Jackson told BOSSIP.
He pointed to Morgan as an example.
“Tracy Morgan is an African American man, but that is not how I would describe — that would not be the first thing I say to describe Tracy Morgan,” Jackson said. “So it’s approaching it from that way. What are the unique attributes of everybody on the cast? And then, how do we make the funniest, best moments for them on the screen?”
As for Reggie, the former football star still has some work to do when it comes to his reputation.
Asked what advice they would give him if they were put in charge of his crisis PR, Hall said his TV dad’s lack of posting online is definitley working in his favor.
“I’m glad that he’s not on social media like that,” Hall told BOSSIP. “Especially Twitter. Because if Reggie was posting his thoughts daily on Twitter, we would be in the hole.”
He added Reggie would be better off listening to the people around him, particularly Monica, Brina and Arthur.
As for Jackson, he told BOSSIP that Reggie should probably keep some of his opinions to himself.
Source: Scott Gries / NBC
“Reggie, don’t give your hot takes,” he joked, recalling one of the character’s memorable declarations: “Jesus, Black. George Washington, Black.”
“Maybe less of those. Or maybe more of them,” he added with a laugh. “Actually, maybe more of them.”
Th EP also gave us a small season two tease, suggesting that viewers could see Reggie become more willing to face his past.
“Don’t be afraid of your past mistake. Go out into the world a little bit more,” he said. “But actually, I think we might see some more of that come season two. Who knows?”
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins returns for its second season Monday, Nov. 2, at 8:30 p.m. on NBC, with episodes also streaming on Peacock.
