With the premiere of Atlanta Robbin Season being the most-watched comedy on cable this year, it goes without saying that its stars' profiles continue to rise. Actress Zazie Beetz sat down in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, sharing her thoughts about her place in the industry, the "more somber" second season of Atlanta, and how she got ready for her upcoming role in Deadpool 2.
Her upcoming role as Domino in the sequel to 2016's Deadpool, which she got after a single meeting, was not without its sacrifices. "It was a lot," she said of the grueling two-month training she took on before the film and the daily workout of just being on set. "In my routine day-to-day, I didn't really work out that much. So it was a huge transition emotionally and physically ... [I'd] never really brought myself that far."
Last week's season 2 premiere of Atlanta saw millions of viewers ready to dive back into the show head first. For Beetz, the new season means a chance for audiences to get to know her character Van even better than before, since the show focuses so much on Donald Glover's Earn and cousin Alfred's personal and professional struggles.
"The show is sort of through the male gaze. It's about ego and male ego," she says, adding that the new season will see further character development for Van "outside of just the context of Earn." Additionally, Beetz said the new season of the show is "definitely darker, it’s more somber" than its first. If that first episode was any indication of how the rest of the season will go, a more macabre take on the show's usual absurd humor makes perfect sense.
