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Vice Blog

DONALD GLOVER LIKES TO SHIT ON PEOPLE'S FACES

Donald Glover's career has been a comedy geek's nocturnal emission. After getting his start with the Derrick Comedy sketch troupe he got a job writing for 30 Rock back when that was one of the best sitcoms on TV. After getting tired of it, he left that plum gig to focus on standup, his music career, and Mystery Team. These days he's best known as the guy who plays Troy on Community, which is probably the funniest show on network TV. Season two starts tonight, and we called Donald to talk about how things were going, but ended up mainly talking about feces.

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Vice: You moved from New York to LA, and people here in New York always say LA is phony—is there any truth to that?
Donald Glover: Yeah, a bunch of LA is phony. That's the business. You have to be phony, because people always want the best version of you all the time, and no one's awesome all the time--no one. Even George Clooney, I'm sure he's done something awful, like he's shit himself. The thing is they're asking for that self all the time, and I'm getting more and more used to that. Even when you're chilling, you're kind of performing for people because they want to believe, "Oh, this guy's always laid back!" I've learned that, yeah, a lot of it's phony.

You've been releasing some hip-hop mix tapes as Childish Gambino lately. You probably get tired of answering this question, but is your music like Adam Sandler's music, meaning the songs are written as a comedian, or is your life as a musician and as a comedian separate?
It's hard to explain. I wouldn't call them separate, because I do reference my comedy a lot in my raps. And if you laugh at any of my raps, I'm fine with that. Some stuff in there is supposed to be funny. When people hear that I write, they're not like, "Wait a sec, how does this guy act too?" Me acting and doing music shouldn't be a huge deal. It's not a joke, by any means. I just like music a lot.

In other words, you're not Joaquin Phoenix.
No, no, I'm not Joaquin Phoenix. I was told that somebody shit on somebody's face in that movie. I'm not going to do that.

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I just saw that movie last weekend, and yeah, that was an alarming part to see.
I'm not gonna do that on camera.

If you do that, we won't hear about it.
Well, unless she tells somebody.

Oh, it's a woman who's getting her face shit on?
Is it not a woman in the movie?

No, it's actually Joaquin who gets shit on.
Look, all I'm saying is that to be aroused, I need to shit on someone's face, usually a woman. That's all I'm saying. Will that make it in?

Yes, we'll make the headline: "Donald Glover Likes to Shit on People's Faces."
The only way Donald Glover can cum.

So what's going on in the next season of Community? Is anyone going to get shit on?
I can't guarantee that won't happen. I think Community is looking to be pretty amazing. There's a zombie episode, and an episode that's all claymation. Those episodes are getting done right now. I've never been this excited by anything we've done. There's a whole bunch of good episodes coming up. It's really cool.

I know there were some cancellations floating around last season—is that something you worry about?
I'm personally not nervous. It's not [obnoxious voice] "Oh, we're so fucking good, who would cancel us?" I'm just not nervous because that Thursday night lineup is really good. Parks and Rec is amazing, 30 Rock is good, The Office… we do stuff that other networks don't, and I feel like our audience is growing every day. Also, if anything happens, if we do get cancelled, I was on an awesome show for two years. There's nothing wrong with that. If we go out being considered the Arrested Development of NBC, I'll take being Michael Cera any day.

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Community shares the same time slot as Big Bang Theory. I know you tried to start some rumors about that show on Twitter, but do you want to start some new ones right now?
Sure. Let's see…the creator of Big Bang Theory was once part of the Hitler Youth, that's a good one. The girl on Big Bang Theory bought a village in South Africa and burned it down. Just straight up burned it down.

Were there people in the village when she burned it down?
I'm not sure. I'm not gonna rule it out. I'd be amazed if she cared enough about human life to get them out of there. And the Indian guy, Kunal?

Yeah? What about him?
He used to beat my mom when I was a kid.

Wow.
Yeah, that's what I said. I was like, "Wow, they gave that guy a show? That guy used to come to my house every day and beat my mom!" Oh, and the good-looking guy? He trained the horse that paralyzed Christopher Reeves.

HARRY CHEADLE