Tracy Morgan set to portray Louis Armstrong in biopic

Tracy Morgan is fulfilling a lifetime dream of portraying one of his entertainment heroes, a role that will require the comedic actor to hit low notes with his vocal cords and high notes with a trumpet–or at least puff his cheeks.

Jermaine Fowler, who appears alongside Morgan in the recently released Coming to America 2, said his costar is pursuing a long-held goal of playing jazz legend Louis Armstrong, so much so that Morgan is also bankrolling the feature film.

“I would love to see [Tracy Morgan] do something dramatic,” said Fowler in an interview with NME. “In fact, he showed us a clip of a movie he’s financing that’s really, really dope. He wants to play Louis Armstrong in a biopic and I believe he can do it. He sounds exactly like him and looks exactly like him, and I was blown away by it. If he can truly pull that off I think it’ll put Tracy on another level altogether.”

In a 2018 interview with Howard Stern on Sirius XM, Morgan said he was planning a makeup test and producing a trailer for the Armstrong project, which was shown that year at a fundraising gala for the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, New York. During the Stern interview, Morgan sang a few bars of “Mack the Knife” to prove he could channel Satchmo.

In 2016 Morgan also expressed his interest in Armstrong, telling the San Diego-Union Tribune, ” If I had my dream movie role, it would be to play Louis Armstrong, and I would name it ‘Pops.’ He was the Michael Jackson of his generation—he pleased white people and black people. Check that out!”

In 2003 Morgan spoofed Armstrong during an episode of Saturday Night Live where he performed a brief duet with Queen Latifah.

Armstrong appeared in a large number of feature films and shorts, often playing himself, starting with Ex-Flame in 1930. Hello Dolly! marked his final big-screen appearance in 1969.