Glover

Community star Donald Glover was profiled in the New York Times. At one point, Glover's name had come up as auditioning to play Barack Obama on SNL. The former 30 Rock writer has gone on to new success in front of the camera.

“When I get stopped on the street, I have to listen to know how the person knows me,” Mr. Glover said over arepas at an East Village restaurant. “If it’s an older woman, it’s ‘Community.’ If it’s a New Yorker, it’s ‘30 Rock,’ ” for which he was a writer. He added, “If it’s a dude who has on an A.S.U. hat backwards, it’s probably ‘Bro Rape.’ And the last thing you want to hear when you’re walking down the street with your mom is ‘Yo, Bro Rape!’ ”

The last credit refers to a video he produced with his sketch group, Derrick Comedy, when he was a student at New York University. It skewered frat-boy types and became the sort of Internet phenomenon comedians hope will propel them into careers so huge that they stop having time for the Internet. But even after being welcomed by traditional television —“30 Rock,” “Community” and his first Comedy Central special, which has its debut Friday — Mr. Glover said he has no intention of leaving the Web and other grass-roots outlets behind.

“In Hollywood people are risking a lot of money on your weird ideas,” Mr. Glover said. “They’re trying to make money, and so they should. It’s an expensive business. The vision will always be a bit corrupted, and I’m really fine with that. But online, hopefully, will always be like the Wild West, where anything goes.”[...]

After two seasons, which included numerous late-night sessions with the writing staff on Ms. Fey’s living room floor, Mr. Glover left “30 Rock” — and not because he had another network offer. “People think I left to do ‘Community,’ ” he said. “I left because ‘30 Rock’ is a full-time job, and I was doing so much other stuff.”

The other stuff included breaking into stand-up. “It helps me work out stuff I didn’t know was inside of me, like being the only black kid in my school, or the foster kids we had in my family,” Mr. Glover said. (Over the course of his childhood Mr. Glover’s parents hosted about 100 foster children in their Atlanta home.)