Playing a deceased character in a movie might seem to be one of the easiest roles an actor could take on. After all, what is there to do but lie around and be… well, deceased?

Not so for Natalie Morales, who plays the title character in the moving, funny, and very human new film My Dead Friend Zoe. At the start of the film, Zoe is just a figment of her best pal Merit's (Sonequa Martin-Green) memory and imagination, razzing her at a meeting for military veterans one minute, and then jazzing along with her to their favorite tunes on a drive. But as the movie unfolds, we learn more about the pair, who became close while serving overseas in the Army — and we learn what Zoe was like when she was still in the present tense.

"I think of it as like three different versions of Zoe," Morales tells Gold Derby.