Donald Glover says Liam Neeson initially turned down Atlanta cameo due to racism controversy ‘embarrassment’

‘I was like, “Man, I’m telling you, this will be funny!”’ Glover recalled

Donald Glover has opened up about Liam Neeson’s 2022 cameo in Atlanta, revealing that the Northern Irish actor initially turned down the role due to a race row.

While promoting the revenge movie Cold Pursuit in 2019, Neeson told The Independent that he once walked the streets with a cosh for days, looking to kill a “Black bastard” after someone close to him was raped many years ago.

Neeson said that he felt “ashamed” of his past “awful” behaviour. His comments were widely condemned and the premiere of Cold Pursuit was cancelled.

Last year, Neeson had a cameo in Glover’s dark comedy Atlanta, in a scene in which Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) meets Neeson at a bar called “Cancel Club” and discusses his past “transgression”.

In a new interview with British GQ, Glover said that Neeson had originally said no to the scene as he was “trying to get away” from the racism controversy.

"When I got in touch with him, Liam poured his heart out,” Glover said. “He was like, ‘I am embarrassed. I don’t know about this. I’m trying to get away from that.’

“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.’”

Glover said that Neeson asked for time to “think about it”, before sending him an email reading: “I don’t think I can do it and best of luck with Atlanta, blah-blah-blah.”

Neeson appeared in a 2022 episode of ‘Atlanta’ (AFP via Getty Images)

In the scene in Atlanta, Neeson tells Paper Boi: “You may have heard about my transgression,” before emphasising that his comments in The Independent’s interview came from a place of shame and apologising if his remarks “hurt people”.

“It’s good to know that you don’t hate Black people now,” Paper Boi says, with Neeson responding: “No, no, no, I can’t stand the lot of ya… I feel that way because you tried to ruin my career. Didn’t succeed, mind you. However, I’m sure one day I will get over it, but until then, we are mortal enemies.”

Paper Boi then suggests that the actor hasn’t learned his lesson, if he’s still saying things like that, to which Neeson replies: “Aye. I also learned the best and worst part about being white is you don’t have to learn anything if you don’t want to.”