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Why “Atlanta” Creator Donald Glover Is One Of The Most Creative People In Business In 2017

“I have only a couple more years of being dangerous,” he says. Here’s what the one-man culture factory has in the works.

Why “Atlanta” Creator Donald Glover Is One Of The Most Creative People In Business In 2017

Donald Glover pays close attention to the reactions of his fans. “You’re playing off the vibes, the wavelengths, the algorithms that your audience is giving you,” he says. [Photo: ioulex; Stylist: Way Perry at The Wall Group; Groomer: Ben Talbott at The Wall Group.]

BY Matthew Shaer8 minute read

Donald Glover is tired. Like, bone-tired–the kind of tired that crushes his normally bright voice into a monotonous murmur. “This is a different level of production than anything I’ve ever been involved in, you know?” he says. It’s close to 9 p.m. London time, and Glover is coming off another grueling 10-hour day on the set of his latest movie–the as-yet-untitled Star Wars film in which he plays the beloved Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi character Lando Calrissian. It’s a part that has required Glover to not only undergo intensive stunt training but also participate in daily weight-lifting sessions and abide by a strict muscle-building diet. Most nights, he says, he leaves the set barely able to walk.


Related: See The 100 Most Creative People In Business 2017


Though shooting a mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster has proven more extreme than his typical workday, Glover has lately been getting used to fatigue. Consider the relentless pace of his last 24 months, a period that has ce­­mented his reputation as one of the entertainment industry’s premier polymaths. In addition to playing Calrissian in the eagerly awaited Han Solo-focused prequel (due next summer), he will appear in this July’s Spider-Man: Homecoming in a mysterious role that has been the subject of much online speculation. (Glover won’t divulge anything for fear of, as he puts it, getting “dragged away by the Marvel police.”) Last December, while still making the Spidey film, Glover released his third official album under the name Childish Gambino–the well-received Awaken, My Love!–and in September he put on a sold-out, three-day multimedia event in Joshua Tree, California, to debut his new music.

But the project that has truly kick-started Glover’s career–that has transformed him from a well-respected performer into one of Hollywood’s most exciting and in-demand creative minds–is the FX television series Atlanta, which he created, stars in, cowrites, and executive produces. When it premiered last September, the show quickly established itself as something original and important: a cerebral not-quite-comedy that uses the 30-minute-sitcom format to explore issues of race, class, ambition, friendship, relationships, parenthood, and other endlessly complex subjects. It’s all filtered through Glover’s unconventional aesthetic, which blends pathos and humor with a giddy surrealism that comes and goes like fragments of a dream.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Shaer is a contributing writer for Fast Company. He has been a magazine journalist for 15 years More


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