Fresh off FX’s gift of 6 new Atlanta teasers, Donald Glover had plenty to tell reporters at the Television Critics Association (TCA) summer press tour.
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“I just like endings”, Glover explained of his decision to exit the series before its final episodes, Deadline reported. I think everything should have death clauses in them like humans have death clauses. I mean, thank God one day Donald Trump is gonna die. That’s a guarantee. That’s awesome. It’s important that things end. I’m glad things end because it forces things to progress. “That’s how I feel about that”. “You kind of have to feel it so the tonal aspect was really important to me”.
“The thesis with this show was to show people what it’s like to be black, and you can’t write that down”. There has to be a grounded nature to something – if you have something that is grounded on some level, you can go anywhere. Glover plays Earnest “Earn” Marks, a loner who returns to his hometown to try to make ends meet before being drawn into the rap scene by his cousin, Alfred Miles (Brian Tyree Henry), who suddenly becomes the city’s hottest thing and skyrockets into fame. “I had so much fun on ‘Community, ‘” he said.
“I wanted the show to be more about questions than comedy”. “And that’s why [Harmon] ended that, because he likes endings too”. “We’re bringing in local rappers and people like Migos to make it feel more authentic”. “Its very easy for white people to know because there’s Vine. Millennials think they know everything, but you can’t get the questions you really want out of life from Google”.
Asked how he expects people to respond to Atlanta, Glover said, “Some of them will be like, ‘Oh that’s cool.’ Some of them will be like, ‘I hate this thing”. “There really isn’t a limit to how abstract you can get, as long as you believe it”, he said. “That happens a lot”.
One of the reasons Glover wanted to focus on the hip-hop community was because numerous biggest rappers have also faced police brutality and other urban injustice. I wouldn’t have enjoyed that. Then he made a fitting analogy. I just love that.
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Atlanta’s September 6 premiere date. “Like when you go to Universal Studios, it’s like, “I’m at Hogwarts”!”
