![]() ![]() “We’ve always lived a couple of inches off the ground of reality,” Murai tells Vanity Fair. ![]() His long, ongoing collaboration with Glover seemed to hinge on mutual encouragement to take extravagantly imaginative leaps. Sometimes it felt like a seductively surreal joke: “Ralph Ellison and David Lynch walk into a fried chicken joint…” On any given week, you didn’t know whether characters would stumble upon an invisible car, get chased across the city by an angry white woman in a wheelchair, or find themselves captive in a cement room waiting for a meeting with D’Angelo.ĭirector Hiro Murai was the magic eye behind Atlanta’s poetic visual style from the get-go. Paper Boi ( Brian Tyree Henry), his cousin and manager, Earn (Glover), Earn’s girlfriend, Van ( Zazie Beetz), and their mystic stoner pal Darius ( LaKeith Stanfield). But it was enjoyable.Atlanta set the bar crazy high for original television with its four seasons over these last six years, and the show wove a dreamy spell until its very last breath in tonight’s series finale.ĭonald Glover’s FX/Hulu series slid fearlessly between wild absurdism, existential melancholy, and stinging cultural critique as it loosely circled its central gang of four: rising rap star Alfred a.k.a. Glover: Our production office was a mess. And that’s helped me, because Brian always wants to scream. Dealers are the ones who know their periphery. Henry: All I think of all the time is, how close to danger is Alfred? What are the repercussions if Alfred reacts? And, like, “What the f-?” Most of the time, I start with “What the f-?” But he’s most powerful in his silence, right? He is the biggest observer. His reaction shots, each one is a GIF-able gift. A lot of my friends who don’t know Atlanta, the rap scene, they say, “I don’t know why, but the person I relate to most on this show is Paper Boi.” Brian is just so empathetic and present, and as a viewer, you automatically latch onto his perspective. Murai: Honestly, I think the heart and soul of this show. Glover: Hiro and Brian always have these tough Al episodes, and they tend to be my favorite, because they’re really cool ways of showing this internal process of growing up. Every time a scene’s not working, they go, “What’s Alfred doing right now?” Murai: The editors and I, we always talk about how “Atlanta’s” subtitle should be “Alfred Reacting to S-.” As an editor, it’s so valuable. Glover: All we can play with is time and space.Īnd Brian’s many priceless reaction shots. Like, here are the other people sucked into this. But within the pantheon of the universe that is “Looney Tunes,” it’s still funny. Henry: It’s like what you said about “Looney Tunes,” right? You think it’s supposed to be about Bugs Bunny, then next week it’s about, like, chipmunks, then it’s a crossover with Daffy. She raised me.” That was really cool, and that story was never going to happen unless we did it. Glover: I had a friend call me, white guy, really nice, he said, “I was raised by a Trinidadian woman in the exact same fashion, and I’ve struggled with all the things I know. The minute people think they know the formula of “Atlanta,” it’s like, “Psych!” Our universe allows “Trini 2 De Bone” to exist. Henry: I was just saying, we’re not precious. Murai: I was laughing, but in the back of my head, I was like, “Where’s Earn, though?” But it also felt like us. ![]() What did it feel like when you read those scripts, Hiro? If it was just, it would feel small to what we were talking about. You let the theme do the work, and that first episode, the thesis is there, and I’m like, “OK, here are a bunch of flavors of that.” We tried to echo things. Glover: Hiro said this: It’s like a concept album. And it’s like, “Oh, they’re screaming ‘cause they care about who we are.” I just didn’t know who the hell I was until we were in Europe being screamed at by white people in different languages. Henry: I have this weird idea about how fame speeds up your mortality, because now all of a sudden you belong to everybody. This felt like Paper Boi’s season, flexing his fame in another country but also processing his feelings about it. rapper Paper Boi and director-executive producer Hiro Murai mused on “Atlanta” - its strengths, its joys and why it’s always changing. Over a group Zoom recently, creator-star Donald Glover actor Brian Tyree Henry, who plays Alfred, a.k.a. The Emmy-winning FX series “Atlanta” returned for Season 3 sporting a location switch (Paper Boi touring Europe) and bold narrative detours (episodes without the regulars) while still offering the rich, absurdist pleasures of its core characters dealing with success, change and life’s weirder realities. ![]()
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