Donald Glover has described the uncompromising advice he gave to Malia Obama while collaborating on a TV series.
Obama, who is the daughter of former US president Barack Obama, worked as a staff writer on the recent Prime Video series Swarm, which Glover created.
In an interview with GQ, Glover – who has been mentoring the 24-year-old – recalled an early interaction with Obama.
“The first thing we did was talk about the fact that she will only get to do this once,” he said.
According to the Atlanta star, he told her: “You’re Obama’s daughter. So if you make a bad film, it will follow you around.”
Elsewhere in the piece, Glover discussed his production studio Gilga, and the origins of Liam Neeson’s provocative appearance in the third season of Atlanta.
In the series, Neeson appears as himself, patronising a bar called the “cancel club”. In an interaction with “Paper Boi” (Bryan Tyree Henry), the fictional version of Neeson addresses his notorious racism controversy.
While promoting the revenge movie Cold Pursuit in 2019, Neeson recalled to The Independent that he once walked the streets armed with a cosh, looking to kill a “Black bastard” after someone close to him was raped.
The actor explained that he was “ashamed” of the behaviour, branding it “awful”.
According to Glover, Neeson had initially declined the chance to appear in Atlanta because he was “embarrassed”.
“When I got in touch with him, Liam poured his heart out,” Glover explained. “He was like, ‘I am embarrassed. I don’t know about this. I’m trying to get away from that.’”
However, after consulting with the filmmaker Jordan Peele, Neeson eventually changed his mind and agreed to take part.
Swarm is available to stream now on Prime Video.
