While speaking to GQ for an interview, the “Atlanta” creator recalled calling Liam Neeson star to pitch the idea of appearing on an episode of the series, in which he would address racist comments he made in 2019 that stirred a backlash.
In a 2019 interview, Liam admitted to carrying around a weapon for a week, hoping to kill someone Black because one of his friends was raped by a Black man.
“When I got in touch with him, Liam poured his heart out,” Donald recalled. “He was like, ‘I am embarrassed. I don’t know about this. I’m trying to get away from that.’ And I was like, ‘Man, I’m telling you, this will be funny! And you’ll actually get a lot of cream from it because it’ll show you’re sorry.’”
After saying he’d “think about it,” Liam sent Donald an email saying, “I don’t think I can do it.”
But the rapper/actor didn’t give up.
“Liam said (after the incident) he talked to Morgan Freeman, Jordan Peele, and Spike Lee. So I was like… Jordan Peele!” Donald recounted. “I hit Jordan Peele up, and I was like, ‘Look, man, I got this idea. He said that he trusted you. Tell him it’s a good idea!’”
He continued, “Jordan talked to him. Liam hit me back and said he talked to Jordan and his son and thought it’d actually be a good thing.”
In the “Atlanta” episode, he told Paper Boi (played by Brian Tyree Henry) that he “can’t stand the lot of you,” calling Black people his “mortal enemies.”
When Paper Boi asked him why he thought he could say that, he responded, “The best and worst part about being white is that you don’t have to learn anything if you don’t want to.”