Donald Glover hits out at ’30 Rock’ hiring as ‘diversity thing’
Donald Glover has hit out at his ’30 Rock’ hiring as a “diversity thing”.
The Golden Globe and Grammy-winning actor and singer, 39, wrote for and occasionally starring in the NBC sitcom, which ran from 2006 to 2013, but he says its creator Tina Fey, 52, told him he was brought on as part of a box-ticking initiative.
He told GQ: “There is no animosity between us or anything like that, but (Tina Fey) said it herself... it was a diversity thing.
“It definitely didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there.
“I used to have stress dreams every night where I was doing cartwheels on the top of a New York skyscraper with the other writers watching me.”
Donald told the New Yorker in 2018 that while comedian Tina admired him, she apparently hired him as funding from NBC’s Diversity Initiative “made (Donald) free”.
The actor also told GQ he later discovered his ’30 Rock’ job was between him and ‘Black-ish’ creator Kenya Barris, 48.
He added: “The last two people who were fighting for the job were me and Kenya Barris.
“I didn’t know it was between me and him until later. He hit me one day and he was like, ‘I hated you for years!’”
Donald also said despite wanting other jobs such as a spot on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and a part in ‘Parks and Recreation’, he’s glad he was never given the chance as he fears his career acting in hit show ‘Atlanta’ and blockbusters may never have happened.
He added: “I dodged so many bullets. Me being on ‘SNL’ would’ve killed me.
“I got friends who made it on ‘SNL’ and, at the time, I was like, ‘Damn.’
“But if I got on ‘SNL’, my career wouldn’t have happened. And thank God,” “Thank God I didn’t get some of those pilots. I wanted so desperately to be on ‘Parks and Rec’ because it was the cool, hipster show.
“I am the bullet dodger. I feel like Samuel L. Jackson in ‘Pulp Fiction’.
“‘That wasn’t a mistake,’ you know? ‘God did that.’”
