Donald Glover says that he cried in response to the backlash over season 3 of his hit FX series, Atlanta. Reflecting on the season during a new interview with GQ, Glover explained that he still feels people will view the episodes in a positive light in retrospect. Glover explained that fans "deserve something that isn’t easy for everyone to digest all the time.”
He continued: “I knew season three wasn’t easy. We all knew it wasn’t easy. We knew opening the season without [any of the cast] was going to make people fucking mad and be like, ‘What the fuck?’ It felt like…you’re climbing and you’re climbing to get to the top where the light is. And when you get there, you can do whatever dance you want. And that’s what everybody’s fighting for.”
Donald Glover At The Premiere Of "Atlanta" Season 3
“I think with me specifically, people never give me the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “And I needed to see for me. This has nothing to do with the art, because I made sure that the art was good. But it really was a personal exploration just for me. No one else knows this, but I was like, Did I make it? Did I make it to the Kanye and the Quentin Tarantino and the Scorsese level? I do think people will go back and be like, This season is good. I wasn’t ever worried about that.”
From there, Glover compared himself to Wes Anderson, who he says "never makes money," but still receives funding for unusual projects. “Like with Wes Anderson, there’s different rules. This n***a never makes money. It’s not about the money. It’s because a certain group of people are like, ‘This is important.’ And I was like, ‘Are Black people at a point now where they can do that on their own?’”
He elaborated by referencing Prince's Sign o' the Times: “It made me very sad. I cried. I did. Not like, ‘You guys, this is really good.’ [Laughs.] It’s like what Prince said when U2 won best album. He was like, If y’all wanted me to make that album, I could have. U2 couldn’t make Sign o’ the Times. But I know the character I am in culture and in Black culture—and that it doesn’t feel good coming from me. And also like, I don’t feel good saying shit like that. I’d much rather lay on the empathy.”
[Via]
