After a slight delay due to Donald Glover’s involvement in Solo: A Star Wars Story (for which he was ace in), FX’s hit show Atlanta is back for its second season entitled Robbin’ Season. And to celebrate its release, we sat down with star Brian Tyree Henry about the show, Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles where the sophomore season will take us.
In fact, so good is Robbin’ Season that Season 3 is already in pre-production ahead of a 2019 release. And Henry says that while they have had a blast making the show, you never know what audiences will think of it until they see it:
“I’m really glad we got a Season 3. You never really know how people are going to take to it, I never want to be so presumptuous like ‘Yeah, we’re gonna come back!’ but I’m glad that people want to see us again so I’m glad to step up to the plate… It’s so gratifying that people are recognising the work that you’re doing and that they want more.”
As with many shows, the second season delves deeper into the “mythology” of the show, delving deeper into the characters and their relationships and the effects of both sides of fame and the pursuit of the American Dream. On discovering the path of the follow-up, Henry says:
“We’re cousins and been in each other’s lives forever and what happens when one of them goes away and you come back to this world that you don’t really know and you come back and your cousin is now this phenomenon. Robbin’ Season is very much more about the relationships and the hard truths that come along when fame and notoriety get involved and it’s not an easy process, it’s not easy to show or navigate and it’s new terrain for all of us.”
If a hit show and a successful stint on Broadway with Captain America himself Chris Evans wasn’t enough, Henry has just finished work on a few anticipated projects: Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse, Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk. On the latter two, Henry says that he was so fortunate to go on the journeys of directors Steve McQueen and Barry Jenkins with those films, concluding:
“Steve McQueen is a visionary and picks his projects very carefully and to be able to do ‘Widows’ with Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Colin Farrell all these actors I’ve looked up to for a long time is unlike anything I’ve done…. Barry Jenkins is masterful as well. ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ is one of my favourite James Baldwin novels and we shot in New York five blocks from my house. The calibre of stories they choose and actors that they choose I’m really very fortunate to be amongst all of that.”
Atlanta Robbin’ Season, Sundays at 10pm on FOX. Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk open in cinemas later this year.
