Morgan has parlayed the success he garnered from the big screen and has created a documentary television series for FX. "30 Days" takes the "Super Size Me" concept with a broader scope: examine what it's like to live someone else's life for 30 days. Each episode follows someone who puts their daily routine on hold for a month and slips into the shoes of a different lifestyle. For example, within the first few episodes we are treated to a peek of what it would be like to be a devout Christian living as a Muslim, and a Midwestern homophobe living in the heart of gay culture in San Francisco's Castro District (both of which sound like damn interesting premises).
Always being one to volunteer himself for human experiments, Morgan took on the challenge for the premiere episode, and dragged his fiancée, Alexandra (Alex) Jamieson, along for the ride. The mission was to see what it would be like to live off minimum wage salaries for 30 days. So, after Morgan and Alex attended the 2005 Academy Awards, they left their comfortable lifestyles in New York City and moved to Columbus, Ohio for a (temporary) life of poverty. Ohio was selected because the state was a good representation of the hardships facing America today, in that it has lost 250,000 jobs over the past 4 years (yikes!).
Going into this experiment Morgan set three rules they had to follow: each of them would hold a minimum wage gig, all their credit cards and bank accounts were to be frozen for the duration, and each would start out with cash equaling one week's worth of minimum wage job pay (that's $206, but just $178.47 after taxes). I don't know about you, but just the thought of slaving away at a full-time job but still living below the poverty line, is enough to make this (relatively) spoiled boy avoid this little test like the plague. Fortunately for us, Morgan and Alex are troopers and sacrificed themselves for the sake of opening some eyes.
