Donald Glover On Mentoring Malia Obama With Short Film For Gilga, Landing Liam Neeson Cameo On ‘Atlanta’ & Not Getting Cast On ‘SNL’ - Deadline

Donald Glover is opening up about Gilga, his production company headquartered in Ojai, California. One of the projects that have people buzzing is a short film created by Malia Obama, the eldest daughter of former President of the U.S. Barack Obama and former First Lady of the U.S. Michelle Obama.

“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” Glover told GQ magazine in an interview. “You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”

Glover says he’s been mentoring Malia throughout the process and his creative partner at Gilga, Fam Udeorji, weighed in about the former First Daughter adding, “Understanding somebody like Malia’s cachet means something. But we really wanted to make sure she could make what she wanted—even if it was a slow process.”

The Community alum also got to talking about how he was able to persuade Neeson to appear in Atlanta after the actor’s controversial remarks. Glover said that he got in contact with Neeson who “poured his heart out” and felt “embarrassed” by the comments he had made about the Black community. However, Glover remembered that Neeson had mentioned Jordan Peele during their chat and through the Nope director was able to sway the Taken actor into appearing on the FX series.

“Jordan thought [the idea] was hilarious! So Jordan talked to him. Liam hit me back and said he talked to Jordan and his son and thought it’d actually be a good thing,” Glover said.

Reflecting on his past, Glover mentioned that not landing Saturday Night Live was one of the “bullets” he dodged in his career.

“Me being on SNL would’ve killed me. I got friends who made it on SNL and, at the time, I was like, damn. But if I got on SNL, my career wouldn’t have happened,” he added.

Glover also mentioned he dodged a bullet not booking Parks & Recreation saying, “Thank God I didn’t get some of those pilots. I wanted so desperately to be on Parks and Rec because it was the cool, hipster show. I am the bullet dodger. I feel like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. That wasn’t a mistake, you know? God did that.”

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