By Beth Harris
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Donald Glover warned his fellow writers from the first day on "Atlanta" that the show would get canceled for what it was going to attempt.
He was wrong.
The buzzy FX series won Emmys and drew praise for its social commentary and experimentation that pushed boundaries when it debuted in 2016. The show begins its fourth and final season on Sept. 15. The premiere includes two episodes of the 10-episode season.
"I feel like this is probably the most grounded season. It explores people more than we have before," Glover told a TV critics' meeting Tuesday. "We're right now kind of living in a time where you just don't give people the benefit of the doubt so I feel like this is a good time to kind of explore that more."
Glover writes, directs, executive produces and stars as Earn Marks, a Princeton dropout who manages his rapper cousin as they navigate the Atlanta rap scene.
The show's run has been spread out, with FX citing scheduling conflicts for creating a wide gap between seasons two and three. The sophomore episodes concluded in May 2018, and season three debuted this past March.
"Our show started kind of punk, like no one cares about a lot of stuff," Glover said. "That was my mindset anyway, but by the end we cared about a lot of stuff. A lot of our lives changed in a lot of ways so we kind of grew up. We ended up being a show about people and before it was about do people matter."
The show has been criticized by some Black viewers, including those who claim it's inauthentic about the Black experience, and Glover has been singled out for his depiction of Black female characters.
"I listen to the criticisms, but I'm also like the conversation isn't as elevated as it should be," Glover said. "This is such a Black show on a lot of levels. To say that it's for white people is like we're cutting ourselves down. It's just sad to me mostly."
Stephen Glover, who co-writes the show with his older brother, is bolstered by Black viewers he runs into telling him they're inspired to "do cooler and weirder stuff" because of the show.
"For me that is the real kind of conversation that's happening out there that I listen to," he said. "I kind of get my feelings from the streets."
Last season took place almost entirely in Europe and included four installments that focused on one-off characters, which drew mixed opinions from viewers. Some of that stand-alone element is back this fall, although the show returns to its home city.
"It felt for a lot of people like a step out of the way we do things, but for me it's kind of like we've always done stuff like that," Stephen Glover said. "Maybe people won't hate us so much this time."
A laughing Donald Glover added, "If the question is did we learn our lesson, the answer is no."
Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Ends Retirement For A Film Directed By His Son
Daniel Day-Lewis is coming out of retirement, seven years after his last movie, for a film directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis.
The project was announced Tuesday by Focus Features and Plan B, who are partnering on "Anemone." The film, Ronan Day-Lewis' directorial debut, will star his father along with Sean Bean and Samantha Morton. The film was co-written by the two Day-Lewises.
Earlier Tuesday, Daniel Day-Lewis and Bean were spotted driving a motorbike through Manchester, England, stoking intrigue about his impending return to acting. After making Paul Thomas Anderson's 2017 film "Phantom Thread," the 67-year-old had said he was quitting acting.
"All my life, I've mouthed off about how I should stop acting, and I don't know why it was different this time, but the impulse to quit took root in me, and that became a compulsion," he told W Magazine in 2017. "It was something I had to do."
Since then, his appearances in public have been infrequent. In January, though, he made a surprise appearance at the National Board of Review Awards to present an award to Martin Scorsese, who directed him in "Gangs of New York" (2002) and "The Age of Innocence" (1993).
"Anemone," currently in production, is described as exploring "the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds."
Ronan Day-Lewis, 26, is a painter who has previously exhibited his works in New York. His first international solo exhibition debuts Tuesday in Hong Kong.
"We could not be more excited to partner with a brilliant visual artist in Ronan Day-Lewis on his first feature film alongside Daniel Day-Lewis as his creative collaborator," said Peter Kujawski, chair of Focus Features. "They have written a truly... Read More