Among the best gifts Atlanta’s film and TV industry boom has given the local community is the hugely successful and respected FX series “Atlanta.” The show created by and starring the actor, writer, comedian and musician Donald Glover takes its audience on surreal journeys – intimate, unsettling and often hilarious – through the city we call home.
Its newest season, out now on Hulu, features an episode directed by the Atlanta native Angela Barnes, who has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for her work on the show. Angela Barnes joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about “Atlanta” and her storied career in directing.
Interview highlights follow below.
An “Atlanta” creative team that uplifts diverse contributors:
Donald and Hiro Murai, who’s the executive director and who directs most of the episodes, the two of them are, I don’t know, they’re just mad cool dudes,” said Barnes. “For a show that has a lot of men in charge and is about dudes, you’d worry about having a ‘bro’ energy behind the scenes. And I joked with Donald, ‘The awards are nice. This Emmy is nice. The Golden Globes are nice. But literally, this is the only show I’ve never been mansplained on.’ That, to me, is the best award ever, that I can come in and not have to worry about people second-guessing because, as a woman and as a woman of color… people don’t always want to listen to what you have to say the first time; sometimes you need somebody else to say it for you.”
The two intimate, interwoven tales of the episode “The Homeliest Little Horse”:
“There’s two stories that are going at the same time. One is about a young woman who has dreams about being a children’s book author and who finally seems to get her foot in the door… She’s jumping through all these hoops to get her shot,” recounted Barnes. “And then at the same time, we see Earn through various stages of therapy, from his first time going, and then as he gets more comfortable, we see another visit, and as he has a breakthrough. So we see these phases in his therapy, and then at the end, we see how these two stories relate to each other in a way that I think is pretty hilarious.”
Setting the perfect pace for a glimpse into Earn’s breakthrough therapy:
“Directing, to me, is like music or like dancing. There’s a rhythm to it, and if you stay in the same beat for too long, sometimes you just need to change it up a little bit. I like snappy shows. I like scenes that, you know, go-go-go-go-go. But here’s a guy who’s easing into his therapy; he’s easing into opening up to this man he’s just met that is his therapist. So stuff like that can’t be in a hurry,” said Barnes.
“That last scene in the therapist’s office was one of the most incredible directing experiences I’ve ever had on set, and it was one of those things that I thought it was just me – I was just excited that the scene was going the way I wanted it to and that it felt right – and then when we were all done, and we wrapped the scene, two of the crew members came up to me, separately, like ‘That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,’ and that never happens.”
On Barnes’ original 2020 PSA video “Get Your Booty to the Polls:”
“I said, ‘We need something that is specific to Atlanta, and either funny enough or shocking enough that people will share it because we don’t have the money to do sponsored ads. So we need to make sure that people are going to want to share it willingly.’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, Magic City strippers saying ‘Get Your Booty to the Poll,'” Barnes recalled. “At the beginning, I said it as a joke, as if that was getting [voters’] attention, and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ I consider myself a fairly feminist person – waving booties to get attention was not what we were trying to do. ‘But if the dancers had the message, then I think it could work.'”
“[My producers] went on dancers’ Instagrams and stuff to see what dancers were posting things that were political, and then they went into the clubs and talked to the dancers,” said Barnes. “We got so lucky – Cory Malone, we got Nikki St. John, Jenny Gang, Zippora Lewis – the dancers we got were just so outstanding and… all for it, too.”
The new season of “Atlanta” featuring the episode “The Homeliest Little Horse,” directed by Angela Barnes, is available to stream with subscription on Hulu here.
