- Born
- Birth nameDonald McKinley Glover
- Nickname
- Bino
- Height5′ 9″ (1.76 m)
- The multi-talented Donald Glover is a writer, actor, musician, comedian, producer and director, who performs under the stage names Childish Gambino and mcDJ. He was born Donald McKinley Glover at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia. His mother, Beverly (Smith), ran a daycare center, and his father, Donald Glover, is a retired postal worker. He is not, despite rumors, related to actor Danny Glover. He has a younger brother, Stephen Glover, a screenwriter and producer. Donald graduated from New York University with a degree in Dramatic Writing in 2006.
In 2006, at age 23, while still living in the NYU dorms, Glover joined the writing staff of NBC comedy 30 Rock (2006), for which he received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination in 2009. Later credited as an executive story editor, he also had several cameos in front of the camera. In 2009, he left "30 Rock" for a role on the comedy series Community (2009), in which he played an athlete in a rather odd study group, opposite Chevy Chase and Joel McHale. The show ran for six seasons.
Glover is the creator, writer, producer, director and star of the series Atlanta (2016), which debuted on FX in 2016. The series was an immediate critical and commercial hit, winning the 2017 Golden Globe Award for Best Series and Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) for Glover. At the 2017 Primetime Emmy Awards, Glover won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, while the show also earned four other nominations: Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Glover (for the episode B.A.N. (2016)) and his brother, Stephen (for the episode Streets on Lock (2016)).
His first stand-up special aired on Comedy Central in March 2010. As Childish Gambino, Glover has released the studio albums "Camp" (2011), "Because the Internet" (2013) and "Awaken, My Love!" (2016). In 2015, he was nominated for Grammy Awards in 2015 for Best Rap Album for "Because the Internet" and Best Rap Performance for his single "3005" In 2018, he was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for "Awaken, My Love!" and Record of the Year for the hit "Redbone," winning the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance.
On the big screen, Glover's credits include Magic Mike XXL (2015), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and The Martian (2015). He will star as the young Lando Calrissian in the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and will provide the voice of Simba in a remake of The Lion King (2019).
In April 2017, Glover was named among Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World."- IMDb Mini Biography By: cic and Amanda
- SpouseMichelle White(January 2024 - present) (3 children)
- ChildrenLegendChild
- ParentsBeverly Glover (Smith)Donald Glover
- RelativesStephen Glover(Sibling)
- Raps under the stage name Childish Gambino, which was the name he got from a Wu-Tang Name Generator he found online.
- In her 2011 book "Bossypants," Tina Fey said that during the early years of the show, Donald Glover was 30 Rock's only black writer. She also said that he was so young that when he started on the writing staff, he was still living in a New York University dorm and working there as a Resident Adviser. Since he came from a large family in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Fey said that Glover was especially good at writing for the character of Kenneth, who was also supposed to be from Stone Mountain.
- When he decided to leave 30 Rock (2006) in 2009 to try acting, he had the full support of Tina Fey. Fey later wrote that of the many comedy writers she has known in her career who thought they should become actors, Glover was the only one she believed deserved to make it. She recalled thinking, "One hundred percent, he should go be a star.".
- For his role on Community (2009), Glover was named one of the "Eight Actors Who Turn Television into Art," in a cover story of The New York Times Magazine.
- In 2010, while the producers of the movie The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) were casting their Peter Parker, a grassroots Internet campaign sprang up advocating for the role to go to Donald Glover. Andrew Garfield was eventually cast instead, but in 2011, when the "Ultimate" comics version of Peter Parker died, Parker was replaced as Ultimate Spider-Man by a half-black, half-Latino teen named Miles Morales, whose appearance and ethnicity were heavily influenced by Glover's (according to numerous interviews with "Ultimate" comics writer Brian Michael Bendis).
- L.A. is such a different place. I miss New York so much. I almost teared up when I came back and wanted a Guinness and realized I could drink it and take a cab home. I remembered that I could be a functional alcoholic in New York, like I used to be!
- [on his character Troy in "Community"] When you think of the former high school football star, you think 6-foot-2, white, meathead as the model for that kind of character. Since I'm not 6-foot-2 or white, I just thought about what I could bring to it. I thought about Smash Williams from 'Friday Night Lights,' like the cocky quarterback, and played around with that.
- Writing is a very strenuous thing - it's like banging your head against a wall. At the end of the day, acting is better, just because nobody ever asked me if I wanted a Pellegrino in the writer's room.
- [on getting the job as a writer on "30 Rock"] I had a 'Simpsons' and 'Everybody Hates Chris' spec and I remember thinking I was never going to hear from them again. Even after meeting with Tina, I left thinking I wasn't going to get it.
I don't tell a lot of other comedians the story of how I ended up there because I guess a lot of people say it's like a fairy tale. But I just think I was lucky enough to figure out early on that I wanted to do comedy, so that's what I put all my effort into. - I'm probably going to get in trouble for this but 'American Dad' is one of my favorite shows. It gets very dark in places but the jokes are there.
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