Dangerous Minds: How Stephen Glover Baffled Hollywood

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Pablo Torre Finds Out
Episode: Dangerous Minds: How Stephen Glover Baffled Hollywood
Date: May 29, 2025
Host: Pablo Torre
Guest: Stephen Glover (screenwriter, rapper, producer; writer for FX’s Atlanta, brother of Donald Glover)

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Episode Overview

This lively, insightful episode spotlights Stephen Glover’s unique comedic worldview and his subversive approaches to Hollywood storytelling. Pablo Torre and Glover dig deep into their shared fascination with blending "highbrow" and "lowbrow" humor, the creative machinations and backstories behind some of Atlanta’s most mind-bending episodes, and Glover’s mischievous forays into “fake projects” like the 21 Savage movie trailer. The episode is a celebration of creative risk, satirical boundary-pushing, and the value of confusing, captivating, and sometimes baffling the industry gatekeepers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Stephen Glover’s Wild Youth and Creative Roots

• Glover recounts his reckless college days at Georgia Tech, relating survival to a generational “close-call” legacy.

  • [01:21] “By the time I stepped in there, I was just wasted just from, like, pre gaming. And they literally threw me out. … You look back and it’s like, lucky that you kind of made it.” – Stephen Glover

• Early creativity with his brother Donald Glover: from inventing memes in the 90s to their current secret Star Wars project.

The “56 Nights” Trailer That Never Happened

• Glover reveals ambitions for a mock Future biopic, riffing on Future and DJ Esco’s Dubai/56 nights saga.

  • [05:14] “Future’s DJ and friend, DJ Esco… ends up getting detained… He has all of future’s music... The legend is he had to start working from scratch.” – Stephen Glover

• The humor in rappers’ mythologized “origin stories”—and the aborted plan to make a fake, self-aware trailer about them.

Highbrow/Lowbrow Humor & Atlanta’s DNA

• Both Torre and Glover bond over loving art that’s “extremely smart but also extremely stupid.”
  • [08:12] “You gotta mix the high and the low. You gotta mix the candy with the vegetables.” – Stephen Glover
  • References to The Simpsons, Mark Twain jokes, and the necessity of blending silliness with cleverness.

The 21 Savage “Fake Movie” Project

• Detailed breakdown of the viral music video/trailer, featuring the meta-cameo of Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones as themselves (sort of).

  • [09:43] “We depicted Dan in it by a guy who looks, I wouldn’t say in a literal way exactly like Dan, but is spiritually exactly like Dan.” – Pablo Torre

• Comedy in making things “just real enough” to sow confusion — a running gag in Glover’s work.

  • [12:03] “It’s always a funny joke to us of just playing something so, like, straight … that for a second you’re like, wait a second. Is this real?" – Stephen Glover

• Inspired by the tradition of music videos like Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise,” inserting real musicians or stars into movie universes.

  • [10:34] “They didn’t splice Coolio into a scene from Dangerous Minds. They put Michelle Pfeiffer into the Gangsters Paradise video.” – Pablo Torre

• The meme-ification of the original “Highly Questionable” 21 Savage interview and using actors with no idea of their roles for extra comedic effect.

Atlanta’s Most Memorable / Subversive Episodes

The “Goof Who Sat By The Door” Mockumentary

• Discussed as an exercise in both earnest documentary style and high-concept satire.
  • [13:03] “The belief is that a Goofy movie is inherently a black movie. What if it was actually made by a black guy who managed to get in charge, just long enough to make this movie that’s the blackest movie of all time?” – Stephen Glover

The Liam Neeson Cameo

• Inspired by Neeson’s own infamous interview about past racist impulses.

  • [25:46] “He’s doing the thing that we kind of want him to do. … He’s being honest and telling this real thing… we’re all better for it… but of course, nobody—the headline is just taking him down.” – Stephen Glover

• Use of discomfort and blunt honesty to subvert both fiction and the “canceled celebrity” trope.

  • [27:24] (On Neeson) “The honesty in that. He’s like, I’m gonna actually express what was going through my mind. And we are, in fact, better off when people are able to express how they honestly feel.” – Pablo Torre

Michael Vick “Parking Lot Race” Scene

• Emerged organically out of Atlanta’s atmosphere of “side hustles” and Glover’s real life observations.

  • [33:19] “You go into the bathroom and it’s like a hundred dice games going on, like Star Wars casino in the bathroom … Michael Vick could raise money whenever he wants, just by racing drunk people.” – Stephen Glover

• The narrative economy: the brilliance of “not showing” the anticipated race, letting implication and silence do the comedic work.

  • [32:27] “It’s kind of like horror movies, the less you show, sometimes it’s like, the better, you know? Let people’s imagination work a little bit.” – Stephen Glover

Other Absurdist Moments

• Justin Bieber’s “race-swapped” appearance—FX’s confusion over whether they’d need the real Bieber.
• Repeated notion: the show thrives when refusing to handhold or over-explain its own absurdity.

The Art of Baffling Hollywood

• Glover discusses the ongoing difficulty of explaining his creative projects—to studio execs, random actors, and sometimes his own collaborators.

  • [19:26] “This is the hardest part about creating anything, you know, is it starts off as an idea to you. So you have to translate this into the real world to other people." – Stephen Glover

• The constant negotiation between artistic subversion, audience confusion, and mainstream accessibility.

• Notable failed casting attempts and wild what-ifs (Steve Harvey, Denzel, Stephen A. Smith).

The Lasting Appeal and Challenge of Atlanta

• Atlanta’s enduring popularity is chalked up to its refusal to “hold the audience’s hand," and Glover ponders whether the climate would allow such a show today.

  • [38:12] “In some ways, it’s like, yeah, it would be hard to get it made, but at the same time, I think people are just as thirsty for this type of thing." – Stephen Glover

• Importance of betting on true creative talent—whether it’s at the bakery, in music, or on TV.

  • [39:36] “What did I find out today? I guess you should be good at making things. I would bet on whoever is actually, like, skilled at stuff.” – Pablo Torre

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• [08:55] “You gotta mix the high and the low. You gotta mix the candy with the vegetables.” – Stephen Glover
• [12:03] “It’s always a funny joke to us of just playing something so, like, straight … that for a second you’re like, wait a second. Is this real?" – Stephen Glover
• [25:46] “He’s being honest and telling this real thing, you know, and it’s like, yeah, it’s like, might be uncomfortable, but this is the truth. And … we’re all better for it.” – Stephen Glover on Liam Neeson’s controversial honesty
• [32:27] "It's kind of like horror movies, the less you show, the better ... Let people's imagination work a little bit." – Stephen Glover, on the Michael Vick race
• [39:36] “What did I find out today? I guess you should be good at making things. I would bet on whoever is actually, like, skilled at stuff.” – Pablo Torre

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Notable Timestamps

• [01:21] Stephen’s college escapades and survival
• [05:10] "56 Nights" and mythmaking in rap
• [08:12] Pablo and Stephen on highbrow/lowbrow humor
• [09:30] The 21 Savage trailer and how Dan LeBatard got involved
• [13:03] The genius of Atlanta’s “Goofy Movie” episode
• [25:46] Liam Neeson’s cameo and addressing past controversy
• [32:27] Atlanta’s minimalist visual storytelling: the Michael Vick race
• [38:12] Could Atlanta get made today?

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Conclusion

This episode is a delightfully meandering “talkumentary” about creative risk, comedic subversion, and the power of leaving your audience a little lost. Stephen Glover’s anecdotes and behind-the-scenes insights, peppered with Pablo Torre’s wit, reveal the joyous, strange, and challenging processes that give rise to unforgettable pop culture moments.

If you love smart, stupid, or just offbeat comedy—and want to peel back the curtain on how great TV like Atlanta baffles (and delights) Hollywood—don’t miss this one.

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Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings. The Crown is yours. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

I went out deliberately into black areas in this city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical.

[Pablo Torre]

Violence right after this ad.

[Stephen Glover]

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

[Pablo Torre]

When we got to know each other, Steve Glover, you came in with a lot of stories that I didn't know about. About you had done. I'm not here to confront you over whether you had ever driven a car under the.

[Stephen Glover]

Oh, my goodness. Like, the police are waiting outside.

[Pablo Torre]

Do you have a power ranking in your mind of, like, young Steve.

[Stephen Glover]

Irresponsible man. When I was, like, when I first came into college, I got super drunk, like, with my friends.

[Pablo Torre]

This is a Georgia Tech.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah. There was, like, a club next to it that we, like, went to. By the time I stepped in there, I was just wasted just from, like, pre gaming. And they literally threw me out. They were like, this kid is, like, a liability. My friends were like, they, like, pick me up. Like, jazz from Fresh Prince. Fresh Prince, like, threw me out to club. And then my friends brought me back to my dorm, and then, like, my RA saw them put me in there, and he was like, hey, what's going on? And they just, like, ran and left me. It makes you scared for, like, the future and their own kids a little bit. Cause you're like, oh, man. You look back and it's like, lucky that you kind of made it. Like, somebody said something the other day about, like, thinking about the fact that you're here is, like, all these people behind you, like, survived, you know? And it's like, that is kind of crazy when you think about it. There was probably somebody down the line, one of my ancestors who had a similar experience. He got, like, super drunk and almost got kicked by, like, a horse who just, like, barely missed. He's like, whoa, that was close. Like, you're just barely making it over and over again.

[Pablo Torre]

So the people who have been subscribing to this podcast from the very beginning remember that my friend Stephen Glover, who was a screenwriter and rapper and actor and producer, was our guest on the fifth ever episode of Pablo Torre Finds out, in which we found out that Steve and his older brother Donald invented the concept of memes as children in the 90s and are also currently working on a secret Lando Calrissian Star wars movie for Disney, which immediately made news when he said it on the show in 2023. But Steve is also the guy who accepted in 2017 two Writers Guild of America awards for Atlanta, which remains my favorite television show of all time.

[Stephen Glover]

I gotta say, after winning the second one, I'm jaded already. This town's not that great. Everybody here thinks they're so hot. My agent took me to Dan Tanner's. Awful. Nah, I gotta thank my agents at wme. Tom, I love you, man. I gotta thank my lawyer. Lev in the house. Lev Ginsburg. Y' all know him for taking me to a real restaurant. Jesus. I've taken down a lot of people. I'm sorry.

[Pablo Torre]

And so if you've never seen Atlanta, which also won a bunch of Emmys and Golden Globes and also mainstreamed Migos into popular American culture, just know that what we're about to do here is talk about stuff like Donald racing Michael Vick and casting Liam Neeson and also this insane project from last year that involved both 21 Savage, another very popular rapper from Atlanta, as Well as Dan LeBatard, you know, my boss here at Metalurk, which we'll explain. But it is not like Steve has been able to make every project that he's ever pitched in Hollywood.

[Stephen Glover]

There's always one we talk about where we wanted to do a trailer for 56 Nights. The future, like mixtape. I think 56 nights crazy. I think 56 nights crazy. Like a movie was coming out basically, like about futures life story. Like just the idea of like if you know the 56 night well, please.

[Pablo Torre]

For people who don't know 56 nights refresh our memories.

[Stephen Glover]

So Future's DJ and friend, DJ Esco, well, I guess they were in like Dubai. Ends up getting like detained by maybe like customs or whoever there. And he's put in jail and he has all of future's music, I guess on his hard drive that's also confiscated. So Future is without his dj and he also doesn't have any of his like songs that he's worked on. So like the legend is he had to like start working, you know, from scratch.

[Pablo Torre]

Like I like that. That Esko is like the guy with the nuclear football for the president. If you lose this archive. We are.

[Stephen Glover]

Rappers always have like things like that. You know, it's like this bag with my.

[Pablo Torre]

This unbacked up uncloud.

[Stephen Glover]

$700,000.

[Pablo Torre]

So future has to start from scratch.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, he's cuz Esko is in is locked up and there's no telling when he's getting out. He did eventually get out after 56 nights, hence the name.

[Pablo Torre]

But on night 55, it was real bleak.

[Stephen Glover]

Night 55, they almost. They almost got a new DJ.

[Pablo Torre]

He almost recorded an acoustic album.

[Stephen Glover]

The mixtape that came out and the subsequent run of music Future had supposedly was inspired by having to start over again, which is kind of funny. It's funny that rappers all have, like, this kind of same, like, Christ, like, story. We would, like, make, like, a fake movie trailer for that, but we never got to do it.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait a minute, hold on. You're acting like I'm so wistful for this idea we never got to do where he made a fake movie for a future and instead had to settle for making a fake movie for 21 Savage. So before we get to this fake 21 Savage movie, which I've been meaning to get to for more than a year now, you should also know that there is a thing that PTFO does share in common with Steve and Donald and their group of friends that I have been lucky enough to watch flourish in this industry as both writers and, honestly, cultural critics over the last decade from up close, because both of us love stuff that is extremely smart but also extremely stupid.

[Stephen Glover]

I think that's a good way to put it. It's like eyebrow and low brow. I think that that, like, best describes, like, the kind of comedy taste like, even you like me, Donald. It's like, you know, it's like the Simpsons. That's why we get along. It's like, we can make a joke about Mark Twain. We can make a joke about that.

[Pablo Torre]

Do you, Huck, take Becky as your wife? Hey, they done switched to groom with a pig. No wonder he was pooping so much. I say melting cheese on broccoli a lot. Trying to melt cheese on broccoli.

[Stephen Glover]

That's what people want. You gotta mix the high and the low. You gotta mix the candy with the vegetables.

[Pablo Torre]

And sometimes, as PTFO has established as well, you also gotta mix in a little bit of Lebitard, as you will very vividly see over on our YouTube channel. Which brings us back to something that, yes, I really did need to find out. So the 21 savage thing, though, me talking about this is so overdue.

[Stephen Glover]

These people, they think we're savages.

[Pablo Torre]

It's overdue for a couple of reasons. One of them is that my boss, Dan Lebatard, friend and boss, is in that.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, I mean, we.

[Pablo Torre]

We is depicted in it by a guy who looks, I wouldn't say in a literal way exactly like Dan, but is spiritually exactly like Dan.

[Stephen Glover]

Just enough so that he couldn't sue us, you know, even if you have time on her feet, pretty much. That could be anybody.

[Pablo Torre]

Except for the part where you said, it's him two minutes ago.

[Stephen Glover]

Did I see. I think. I think I met. That was Stephen A. Smith.

[Pablo Torre]

The investigation that I went through on, like. So how is it that Dan LeBatard and Bomani Jones, it turns out, were both depicted in the. The trailer? How would you describe what I'm talking about, what that project was for people, again, who did not get to consume it at the time?

[Stephen Glover]

The way we would explain it to somebody is like, there was a video back in the day for Coolio for Gangster's Paradise. A lot of movies had, like, the soundtrack, you know, song that was also had a video. And they splice in, you know, scenes.

[Pablo Torre]

Where the musician is also in the movie.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah. Michelle Viper actually is in the video. She does the backwards chair.

[Pablo Torre]

So they didn't splice Coolio into a scene from Dangerous Minds. They put Michelle Pfeiffer into the Gangsters.

[Stephen Glover]

Paradise, you know, so that's.

[Pablo Torre]

That makes more sense. Paradise, the Gangsters paradise cinematic universe, the.

[Stephen Glover]

Multiverse is the blueprint for this. As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left. I like how you're like, explain this to people. I'm like, have you seen Gays in Paradise? If you're like, no. I'm like, okay, there's absolutely no way to explain this, which is pretty much how it was. Like, you try to explain it to somebody. You're like, what? You're like, all right, well, I feel.

[Pablo Torre]

Like you and Donald and all of our friends who work with. With you guys, Swankyra, fam. Chad, they're all mad when I don't say their names aloud. When I listen to podcasts, I say that you guys collectively like it. When people are like, so this is a real movie for 21 Savage that you guys are making memories in my head.

[Stephen Glover]

The devil talking to me. It's always a funny joke to us of just playing something so, like, straight or close to it that it's there for a second. You're like, wait a second. Is this real to us, that's always just funny. And it's a lot harder to do than I would have originally thought to make it, to really get close. I mean, like the goofy, like, episode of Atlanta, the goofy documentary for people.

[Pablo Torre]

Who haven't seen the goofy episode of Atlanta.

[Stephen Glover]

What is it?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Stephen Glover]

So Gangster's paradise, right? No, it's just basically a documentary telling the origin of the Goofy movie at Disney.

[Pablo Torre]

And the documentary is named the Goof who Sat by the Door. The Thomas Washington Story, which is already.

[Stephen Glover]

Just, like, pretty hilarious.

[Pablo Torre]

And why I think on some level, like, we are friends, it's like this is both the highest brow and the lowest. Very, very like a spook who sat by the door illusion in the name of a fake documentary on a fake black media network about Goofy. It's a story so unbelievable, it could only happen in Hollywood. How did this young, black, unassuming animator from East Atlanta wind up as the CEO of Disney at the company's most powerful moment in time?

[Stephen Glover]

Did we just play it so close? Like, the belief is that a Goofy movie is inherently a black movie. It was just this idea of, like, what if it was actually made by a black guy who managed to get in charge for, like, you know, just. Just long enough to make this movie that's the blackest movie of all time.

[Pablo Torre]

We all voted for this guy named.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Tom Washington, but we didn't realize that Tom's first name was actually Thompson, not Thomas. Thomas Washington was an animator. People were pretty upset when they found out they voted for the wrong man.

[Stephen Glover]

So making this documentary that feels really real to the point where I'm like, yeah, you know, it kind of does feel like that's the truth, you know, he knew that people thought Goofy was.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Dumb, but he wanted to show the systemic factors that Goofy was dealing with. Job, angry kid, and embarrassed by his lack of influence.

[Stephen Glover]

Man, it was wild how deep he.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Leaned into all this. Cause as far as I knew, Thomas had a really solid home life.

[Pablo Torre]

All of which brings us to why Dan Lebatard was in the 21 Savage fake movie trailer music video.

[Stephen Glover]

He's a part of the culture, whether he likes it or not.

[Pablo Torre]

I don't think he understands his significance enough to have a developed opinion on it.

[Stephen Glover]

I don't know how to explain this to Greg Cody and Stugatz exactly in ways that they would understand, but the Internet, I am told, because we are three old people, the Internet has told me that I have beef with 21 savage. I think I could say to either Stugat or Greg Cody that His name is Savage21, and they would not know the difference. But I don't want to be having beef with. With 21 savage.

[Pablo Torre]

I just remember him saying to me, like, what is this?

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, it's like, sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. You know what I mean? Sometimes the universe comes for you. And it was like he had no idea 21 Savage was going to be such a huge thing.

[Pablo Torre]

So he interviewed on highly questionable RIP to a great show that interviewed rappers a lot. A show that aired on espn. Just to keep in mind what everybody's pulling off here. I love that where Dan and at the time Bomani and Dan's dad, Papi Gonzalo Lebatard are interviewing remotely. 21 Savage Young Savage, why you trapping so hard? Why this capping so hard?

[Stephen Glover]

Why you got a 12 car garage?

[Pablo Torre]

Why are you pulling all these rappers cards?

[Stephen Glover]

Cuz the. And I'm hard. I turn it into some hard. I grew up in the streets without no hard. I'm praying to my Glock and my carbon. The background behind him is like, you know, the buildings or whatever, like kind of like a nice view.

[Pablo Torre]

He has like a green screen.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, like a green screen.

[Pablo Torre]

A tv. A TV fake background in a studio somewhere.

[Stephen Glover]

But the way like he's like sitting kind of and like spinning in his chair, it makes him look like an evil villain. Like kind of, you know, and because like are kind of like, you know, here's 21 savage like kind of talking to him. It's like a little bit like they're a little bit out of their element. It kind of feels like they're scared of him because he's like a super villain. So it's just a thing that immediately kind of became like a meme.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, 21 Savage has a tattoo like on.

[Stephen Glover]

On his forehead.

[Pablo Torre]

On his forehead, between his eyebrows. His hair is like an anime character. I was going to say Imagine Coolio was an anime character. And you kind of approximate.

[Stephen Glover]

I go Black Saiyan kind of. If you watch Dragon Ball Z and.

[Pablo Torre]

He is just like sort of like smiling and holding his hands in a way that has like a doctor Claw aspect. Like as if he had just rotated his chair around. And that still frame inspired Donald to play the role of 21 Savage in that interview. The casting, a big gap in the understanding that I had as to how. How much of an homage this was to this specific HQ interview was me then asking around to our group of friends that made this and being like, like, oh my God, like, I would love to talk to the actor who played like Dan. I got to get him on the show. And I believe, I think it was Pham who was just like, that guy has no idea what role he was playing.

[Stephen Glover]

He really does. It was funny. I remember that guy specifically was kind of like, like an actor who's like, they're like doing a role he has no idea of, like, the context of what we're doing. That was also what's funny. You saw me having to explain to you what this is.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Stephen Glover]

So trying to explain your life is.

[Pablo Torre]

Repeatedly being asked by people to explain the weird thing you're working on. And that includes the people who are starring in various parts of the thing that they are helping you.

[Stephen Glover]

This is the hardest part about creating anything, you know, is it starts off as an idea to you. So you have to translate this into the real world to other people.

[Pablo Torre]

It's like, all right, so you're this Cuban guy with a dark goatee, and you wear a suit behind this desk next to this old guy and this black dude on the other side, and you have, like, buttons unbuttoned, and you're kind of like, you're that guy. And also, I remember Bomani's complaint that he voiced online. They. They thought that I would get on TV without no jacket on, just with a shirt, a dress shirt with the undershirt out of it, the out the pack joint.

[Stephen Glover]

We had to do just enough to feel like it's not you guys, you know.

[Pablo Torre]

And the old man in between them.

[Stephen Glover]

I remember that day specifically. We're kind of behind, so you just gotta give them the fastest things. I didn't give them the whole Coolio speech. I didn't have time. You know, we were moving fast.

[Pablo Torre]

But that ended up being a thing that people eventually realized, oh, this isn't actually a movie.

[Stephen Glover]

That's how you know it's a good prank. When people are sad at the.

[Pablo Torre]

When you're mad that you didn't get the fake movie that this advertised.

[Stephen Glover]

But that's the thing. Like, you already know what this movie is. Yeah. That's why it works so good. You know, if they're like, we're making the 21 Savage movie, like, you already know what the highlights are and how Hollywood is gonna twist that. Have you ever seen the like, do.

[Pablo Torre]

Not ask me if I've seen Gangsters Paradise.

[Stephen Glover]

Have you ever seen Coolio's video? Have you ever seen the biggie movie that came out a couple.

[Pablo Torre]

I saw it in theaters.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

This music you got going on, it.

[Stephen Glover]

Don'T come around every day. When you make it, we all make it.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

If I don't make it, not going.

[Stephen Glover]

Back on the block. What cracks me up about that movie is I think he's. There's like a catchphrase in it. He keeps being like, can't change the world unless we change ourselves. That Biggie is saying, like, over and over again in the movie where you're like, there's no way Biggie ever said that. Right? Like, I don't think he's ever said that.

[Pablo Torre]

I remember getting a text if I'm just gonna throw IBRA under the bus. I think it was ibra. Ibrahque, who is, again, not to dwell on who IBRA is, but just for people who don't know him. Artist, curmudgeon, professional. Now professional New Yorker who lives in France now.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, exactly. In the most New York way possible.

[Pablo Torre]

Creative director guy who's worked with, like, yeah, Beyonce. No, I'm just like, what's the resume is actually crazy. The more I say it aloud.

[Stephen Glover]

No, Evra is like a real artist.

[Pablo Torre]

A real artist, a snob, professional snob. Ibra. Okay. Gotta get a text from him. Just to give you a sense of the high. He's the highbrow. You could argue he brings highbrow credibility.

[Stephen Glover]

He definitely does.

[Pablo Torre]

From now, Paris. Can I get Stephen A. Smith's contact info? We're thinking of casting him in an episode of Atlanta. What was the role for Stephen A. Smith?

[Stephen Glover]

It was probably season three of Atlanta. This is the flamethrower episode of season three. I'm going to donate a million dollars to your school, and I'm changing the name from that degenerate slave owner to one of the richest black men this side of the Mississippi. From now on, this school is going to be named the Robert S. Lee High School.

[Pablo Torre]

Here are the other actors who, I guess, were being considered for the role. Steve Harvey was our first choice. Then Denzel and Spike and Kevin Samuels.

[Stephen Glover]

I am going to pay every single senior's college tuition.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Stephen Glover]

Who's black? We had wanted it to be Steve Harvey, and I think Steve. Steve Harvey seemed like he was into it, like he wanted to do it, and then he kind of, I don't know, at the last moment, dropped out. He might have been.

[Pablo Torre]

You think he read the script?

[Stephen Glover]

I don't. I don't even. I don't know, actually. Did he ever get the script? Maybe that was it. He read it and was like, I.

[Pablo Torre]

Can'T host Family Feud after this.

[Stephen Glover]

I was gonna say, I think he was shooting Family Feud at the time. I think he was, like, shooting Family Feud in Africa or something at the time. That might have been what? Welcome back to the Feud, everybody. The Shadira family won the game, and now it's time to play.

[Pablo Torre]

As somebody who has met Steve Harvey. When I, you know, became the owner of the greatest comeback in the history of celebrity Family Feud.

[Stephen Glover]

Name the greatest breakfast food ever created.

[Pablo Torre]

Bacon.

[Stephen Glover]

Name someone you should never call when you're drunk.

[Pablo Torre]

Your mom.

[Stephen Glover]

Name a coin you throw into a fountain to make a wish.

[Pablo Torre]

A penny.

[Stephen Glover]

We got a shot. I should have made you ask Steve Harvey why he didn't do our episodes.

[Pablo Torre]

If I knew the backstory in full, then his voice would be right here.

[Stephen Glover]

Trying to get people in Atlanta. It's like, that's pretty much what it was. You would just kind of be trying to work your network of like, hey, does anybody know?

[Pablo Torre]

Does anyone know Liam Neeson? Okay, Liam Neeson thing is one of my favorite things that a celebrity has agreed to do.

[Stephen Glover]

Eyes open once again, kind of toeing this line of, like, realness and, like, the strange that we love, you know.

[Pablo Torre]

Again, inspired by an actual interview a celebrity gave to someone inspired by a.

[Stephen Glover]

Real interview that he did.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

I remembered an incident nearly 40 years ago where a very dear friend of mine was brutally raped. But I had never felt this feeling before, which was a primal urge to lash out. I asked her, did you know the person? It was a man. No. His race. She said, he was a black man. I thought, okay. And after that, there were some nights I went out deliberately into black areas in this city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence.

[Pablo Torre]

Liam Neeson says he's not racist. That's in quotes after controversial interview Liam Neeson has. This is from the BBC. Liam Neeson has denied he is racist after admitting he once set out to kill any black man who provoked.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, no, I mean, you know, so just.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's just sit here in that for a second. And so then you guys are like, we have an idea for Liam Neeson. I mean, and by the way, the quote that I just read in all of its bluntness and discomfort is kind of where there is a place to actually understand why Liam Neeson would want to do this and actually benefited from doing what he did with Atlanta.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, shout out to Liam Neeson because it was. It was great for him to do this, to even, like, hear us out talking in the Atlanta writers room. We were like. We were talking about it. We're just like. It's kind of funny because he's doing the thing that we kind of want him to do. You know, he's being honest and, like, telling these, like, this real thing, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's, like, might be uncomfortable, but it's like, this is the truth. And, like, we're all better for it. And, like, he should be like, applauded guy. But of course, nobody. The headline is just, you know, taking him down, which we just thought was funny. Of, like, we always joke, like, you know, you go to, like, a restaurant, you accidentally, like, eat somebody else's food. You get the wrong order. And like, a white guy there, like, that's enough to push him over the edge to racism. He's like, I hate all black people now. You know, all he has to do is have one bad interaction with a.

[Pablo Torre]

Black person, and then you might, quote, go out deliberately into black areas in the city looking to be set upon so I could unleash physical violence. End quote from Liam Neeson, which, again, the honesty in that. He's like, I'm gonna actually express what was going through my mind. And we are, in fact, better off when people are able to express how they honestly feel. So the episode again, to fill in the blanks here. It's the season that and the episode particularly in this case, takes place in Amsterdam.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And there's a club, a seemingly hallucinatory club, where you go in and everybody who's in there has been canceled.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

How did you get here?

[Stephen Glover]

I just followed a local.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

What'd they do?

[Stephen Glover]

What you mean?

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Oh, did they strangle a fan, Shag a teenager? I dig it in.

[Stephen Glover]

Thank you.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

You don't have to say. It's fine. It's your business.

[Stephen Glover]

I mean, not to spoil the episodes.

[Pablo Torre]

We can spoil the. What the are we talking about?

[Stephen Glover]

Some people haven't seen Steve.

[Pablo Torre]

Spoiler alert. Okay, we can speak freely now. You've been warned. You've been warned.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Well, now I feel that way because you tried to ruin my career. Didn't succeed, mind you.

[Stephen Glover]

However.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

I'm sure one day I will get over it. But until then, we are mortal enemies. I'll see you around, Vikla.

[Pablo Torre]

I presume there are people who have not seen this and they should go and watch it and they should come back to this to find the analysis that we're providing. I now realize, by the way, for the record, whenever we meet up, I have no idea what we're going to talk about. Turns out that I've just realized what Atlanta was through this particular lens, which is a show where you had to, at one point, ask Michael Vick to be on it.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, Michael Vick out here racing people. He taking bets, too. Yeah.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Boy, is he.

[Stephen Glover]

Is he doing okay? Oh, he fine. It's just a good hustle. Yeah, drunk people just want to race. This his sixth race in the 10 minutes I've been standing here. That boy good. Anybody else? Anybody? Three to one eyes. It's fair. I kind of want to see this. I'll do it. What are you doing? Sometimes you just gotta stun on people.

[Pablo Torre]

The shooting of it in terms of, like, just how you guys told the story of the race, as in stops, right? As Donald seems to, like, get ahead of Michael Vick at the starting line. And then, like, the. The motif of the kind of like, Rocky music. The whole thing of we don't need to show the race.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, you don't need to see the race. But it's like, how much of the race do you need to show? It's like just him getting a jump on Michael Vic is enough to make you laugh at, like, oh, maybe he's actually gonna do this, you know?

[Pablo Torre]

And then the car. And there is no music. It is dead silent for several seconds. And you don't even know the outcome. Except it's now obvious what the outcome is. And then she says, it's Michael Vick.

[Stephen Glover]

Which is the truth. You know, that's what's so funny, too.

[Pablo Torre]

It's such a great economy of showing. And I mean, in this case, obviously, like, in writing, it's show, don't tell. This is the inversion of that. It's don't show either. Like, don't show and don't tell.

[Stephen Glover]

It's kind of like. Like horror movies, you know, it's like, the less you show, sometimes it's like, the better, you know, Let people's imagination work a little bit, you know? I mean, Donald always had a philosophy on the show, too. Just like, we don't need to explain everything to the audience. We don't need to, like, hold their hand through everything, like they're going to get it. You know, tv. Sometimes you're, like, too worried about, like, explaining everything, you know, it's like, I gotta bring Dangerous Mind script.

[Pablo Torre]

It's literally the exact opposite to what I've been forcing you to do for an hour.

[Stephen Glover]

Exactly. Michael Vick, man, an Atlanta legend.

[Pablo Torre]

Can you take us inside? The origin of that scene, do you remember how it originated?

[Stephen Glover]

I remember me and one of the other writers on the show, Jamal, AKA Swank.

[Pablo Torre]

Yep.

[Stephen Glover]

I remember we went to, like, Complex Con one year, like, out here in la and, like, you go into, like, the bathroom, and it's like a hundred dice games going on, like Full Monty. It's like a Star wars casino in the bathroom. And that's what's kind of like, funny about, like, Atlanta, like, you know, the strip club or like the parking lot even. It's like there's like a million things, like, going on other side hustles and side adventures happening, you know, all throughout this place. It's like a pool game going on over here for thousands of dollars, you know, it's just this idea that Michael Vick could, like, raise money whenever he wants, you know, just by raising drunk people. Which, to be fair, is a pretty great. I mean, if I was in Atlanta and Michael Vick was in a parking lot and people were racing him, I would definitely be interested.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, I feel like that's actually a wildly. That's like hot ones now.

[Stephen Glover]

That's hot.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Stephen Glover]

That was hot.

[Pablo Torre]

I know, I know.

[Stephen Glover]

Still hot.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a. It's a weird show. I know. That's like a. That's a complex YouTube franchise, actually.

[Stephen Glover]

Speaking of which, man, we should talk to Michael Vick and see how if he wants to race people, he interviews people. Like, they're like, stretching. He's like, so, like, what's the movie about? Like, they're both at the starting line and he raises them. He's like racing.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, you have to answer while you're racing him.

[Stephen Glover]

It's like long distance. Like, they gotta race him for like a mile. That's the equalizer with Michael Vick. If you can run for a long time, you know, that's how you beat him.

[Pablo Torre]

What was the pitch to Michael Vick? Was that a hard. Do you remember if it was a hard. Ask if he got it immediately. If he was like, yeah, I'll do that.

[Stephen Glover]

I think he was pretty on board. He was actually like, sure, yeah, that sounds cool. I remember he was into it and fine. I mean, with that shot in particular, I'm like, that's just like a perfect, like, kind of picture of, like, doing comedy especially too of like the script. Whatever's in the script there, it was not what it was there. You know what I mean? It's like you gotta, like, find it. You gotta find the comedic timing. Sometimes that's there, sometimes it's in the editing. I realized that too, like first season, people would read scripts and they would be like, what is this? You know, kinda like, what are we doing? You know, by the time, like, wait a minute.

[Pablo Torre]

Justin Bieber's what? Black?

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait.

[Stephen Glover]

It's cool. It's cool. This is me. This is the real Justin.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm not.

[Stephen Glover]

It was always funny with the Justin Bieber episode. I remember we Literally sent it to fx, the script. And they were like, are we gonna be able to get Justin Bieber? Like, that was like the kind of the first ask. Cause that's how hard it was for them to understand what was going on. Script.

[Pablo Torre]

So you guys want us get Justin Bieber?

[Stephen Glover]

They're like, so Donald's gonna get Justin Bieber. Right. Because we're not going. We can't do that.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, but look, the term from literature to be highbrow, right, Is magical realism. Like, that's Spanish literature. It's like, they don't. They're not explaining either.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Like, why. Why is there this mysterious man on a bus eating, like a peanut butter sandwich?

[Stephen Glover]

Resistance is a symptom of the way things are, not the way things necessarily should be. Actual victory belongs to things that simply do not see failure.

[Liam Neeson (voice reading quote)]

Let the path push you like a.

[Stephen Glover]

Broken branch in a river's current. Nah, nah, I'm not going out like that. But thanks for the advice. Fight this.

[Pablo Torre]

H. At the end of the book, they don't tell you, by the way, that was an allegory. Do you think it's harder or easier to make Atlanta now than it was compared to when you guys actually did make multiple seasons, critically acclaimed and also very, at times, subreddit, aggravating?

[Stephen Glover]

It's hard to answer that question because in some ways it's like, yeah, it would be hard to get it made, but at the same time, I think people are just as thirsty for this type of thing. So in some ways, the climate is, like, perfect for it. You know, I, I, you know.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. That's. That's the argument for it, is that we are. Whether we can articulate this or articulate it enough, we are starving for stuff that actually does make us think as well as make us laugh at the same time.

[Stephen Glover]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And doing that's smart. But again, has some cheese melted on the broccoli.

[Stephen Glover]

Exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

Is. We just don't have enough of it, even as we're starving for it, even.

[Stephen Glover]

When people are asking for it. The timing's gotta be right. You gotta be able to, like, find a way to cut through. I think our show was able to cut through. And, like, in an age where everybody's also like, look at me. I'll do anything to cut through. It's like, how do you subvert that? It's like, well, you just be good. I guess I do.

[Pablo Torre]

Like how the lesson at the end of this, like, what did I find out today? I guess you should be good at making things. I would Bet on whoever is actually, like, skilled.

[Stephen Glover]

At stuff. You definitely should. You know, I mean, it's like, I'll go to the, like, farmers market, very LA sort of thing, you know, and there's like, this bread, like, place that's there. Like, just kind of like French bread bakery that comes out there. And all the bread is like, every time you, like, come, it's like most of it's gone. Because I guess people are coming at like six in the morning to get this bread or whatever. You want to be like, there's no way this is croissant. Is that good? Or whatever. And then you, like, get one. You get, like, something there. And you're like, oh, this actually is pretty good. And you're like, yeah, you know, like you said, betting on the people who know what they're doing. You could think like, man, I'll just go to Vons and get a croissant. But it's like, you're gonna pay for that.

[Pablo Torre]

No. And by the way, what you need are people who have maybe the ability to, like, communicate and then teach this to younger people, even if they may seem like a strange person to listen to. Which does remind me of the movie Dangerous Minds.

[Stephen Glover]

Man. We got. Maybe we'll just update Dangerous Minds. I'm thinking Lando. The Lando movies just kind of like dangerous vibes.

[Pablo Torre]

What if Lando Lando was Michelle Pfeiffer?

[Stephen Glover]

He.

[Pablo Torre]

There's a space school in Cloud City.

[Stephen Glover]

There's a lot of these, like, inner cloud city aliens. They gotta pass this test, but they don't believe in themselves enough. You know, they got a lot of issues at their alien home life. We'll pitch that to Disney.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

[Stephen Glover]

Sam.