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As a white lady I do know I’m most likely experiencing episodes in a different way than some Black viewers watching the present. Did you focus on these totally different audiences whereas making the present?
That’s sort of the wonderful thing about making this present is you’re hovering at this intersection of various cultural gazes. It’s scripted and created by two guys who grew up in Atlanta in a really Black neighborhood, and a number of that stuff is introduced very matter-of-factly within the present—it’s not introduced for white viewers, and it’s put in there with none ceremony or clarification. This present’s additionally very conscious {that a} huge chunk of the viewers, we’re not accustomed to Southern Black tradition, and I believe we attempt to assemble it in a means the place the present feels welcoming to anybody who walks into the room, whether or not they perceive the context or not. That’s within the tone of the present, and likewise simply within the performances and the heat of those characters.
As a non-Black director, presumably there have been instances once you’ve needed to attempt to perceive the implications of one thing unfamiliar to you.
It’s a dialog that me, Donald, and Steve have on a regular basis. Typically I’ll get the context of one thing mistaken and current it in a bizarre means after which they find yourself liking it! That’s the flamable, thrilling factor on the middle of the present, like an overlap of a number of views. All of our palms are on the Ouija board ultimately, and we belief one another sufficient that we simply are likely to let it take us wherever it desires to go.
You simply talked about getting the context mistaken typically. So many Atlanta episodes dig into how white folks undertaking issues onto Blackness, or depict whiteness and wrestle over cultural co-optation.
That’s completely true. And in addition, within the pilot, Earn was an outsider. He’s a Princeton dropout who walked into this world the place his cousin was an upcoming rapper and he received roasted by folks on this world for not understanding the tradition, ? So I believe it’s all the time been about people who find themselves barely exterior wanting in.
Within the finale, there’s the scene the place the Black sushi chef is lecturing the gang about how Popeyes sells a faux model of Black tradition again to the neighborhood. However the chef is a reasonably terrifying determine, so the viewer is being pulled in a number of instructions.
Yeah, I believe the Atlanta code is that everyone’s proper and everyone’s mistaken on the identical time.
You’re persevering with your collaboration with Donald Glover, engaged on his new present Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Does it require a very totally different sort of visible vocabulary?
Yeah, it’s a very totally different factor. The unbelievable factor about Atlanta is, it doesn’t promise you something apart from that you simply’ll be with these folks for half-hour. There’s no set expectations for language or style or how a lot comedy or drama must be in it. However you count on sure issues out of a spy-related story, so it turns into a dialog about when can we lean into these, and when can we subvert them?
So what are the possibilities of bringing Atlanta characters again to life sooner or later? Between Alfred’s dancing in “Crank that Killer” and his and Earn’s rendition of “Previous MacDonald” within the finale, I’d wish to see a particular Broadway musical episode of Atlanta.
The one means this present comes again is as a Broadway musical! [Laughs.]
So a future season or one-off shouldn’t be one thing you’ve toyed with?
We frequently joke that we’ll come again once we’re all 70. It’ll be known as Atlanta: Lottie’s Revenge. If there’s a very good story to inform, I believe we’re all open to the thought of reopening the door. But it surely feels proper to have this [finale] as a punctuation level.
This interview has been condensed and edited for readability.
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