1,414 days. That’s how long Emmy-winning and genre-bending Atlanta made us wait in between seasons.
During that time, the four core cast members—Donald Glover, Lakeith Stanfield, Brian Tyree Henry and Zazie Beetz—all saw their careers explode even further.
Donald (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) won Record of the Year for “This Is America” at the Grammys and starred in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lakeith was nominated for an Oscar for Judas and the Black Messiah, Brian starred in Marvel’s Eternals and Zazie had major roles in Deadpool 2 and Joker.
Yet, during that time, the cast was always connected thanks to one of the most important social institutions of the modern era: the group text.
After producer Stephen Glover—Donald’s brother—told E! News about a writers’ room group text, Zazie was asked about the cast having one of their own.
“Can I reveal who’s in it?!” she asked E! News. “I mean, all the actors. It’s definitely a hot text chain, 24/7. There are no time boundaries on it.”
Donald confirmed that the group text leaves no rest for the weary. “If I put that phone down, it’s not weird to come back to like 88 texts,” he told E! News.
He blames one co-star in particular for blowing up the chat the most.
“I’m going to say Brian [Tyree Henry],” Donald said. “Brian says the funniest stuff. He talks the most on there.”
When confronted with this, Brian said the group chat was a useful GPS tool, if nothing else!
“It’s just a way that we share crazy things and so we know where everybody is,” he told E! News. “These past few years were hard to figure out where everybody was!”
Lakeith echoed the sentiment, and revealed that the Atlanta thread is just like most others.
“You know how group chats are,” he said. “It would be fun, it would be ratchet, it would be cool, it would be funny. There would be intelligent, philosophical conversations. One day it’s that, one day it’s gifs.”
When it comes to meme usage, Donald recognizes the importance of picking your spot.
“I don’t send memes a lot. I send a lot of memes to my brother,” he revealed. “I definitely have a folder of memes I like for responses. I mean, you have to, right?”
We’d pay a large fee to see the Donald Glover meme folder.
The group text isn’t all fun and games, however. When asked if stuff from the group chat ever makes its way onto the show, Donald wasn’t shy.
“Absolutely!,” he exclaimed. “I think anything we talk about on there, like articles we send each other or pictures we laugh about. You’ll see them. They’re on the show.”
See, sometimes wasting time on your phone can be productive!
By Daniel Trainor for E! Online
