Atlanta genius Donald Glover’s first job was on the show 30 Rock. Just soak that in for a minute. Jealous? Yeah, we thought so.
The actor/writer/director/rapper recently spoke with Wired about how he got that first job and how it changed his life.
According to the interview, Glover was still in school at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts when Tina Fey first spotted him. He had made some short videos for a student improv comedy group and she was hooked. That’s all at it took. So at 23, Glover had a job as a writer for one of the most popular shows on television.
“I decided I wanted to write for television because of Tina. She was always so happy, and I was like, I want to be happy like that too.”
Fey clearly has good taste because Glover has more than proved himself to be a talent, both on and off the screen.
Glover — who also goes by his rapper name Childish Gambino — eventually made some appearances on the show. You can easily spot him in the episode “Kidney Now!” as the gay kid in the school graduation or at young Tracy Jordan in “Live from Studio 6H.”
He soon joined the main cast on Community as Troy Barnes and became a known force.
Despite the nearly instant success of Atlanta, Glover still has a number of other projects going on including a second show for FX, a new Childish Gambino album, and a role as Lando in the new Star Wars movie. So yeah, he’s a big deal.
Well done, Tina Fey. Thank you for bringing him into our lives.
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