Dan Harmon Credits The Russo Brothers for Casting Rising Star Donald Glover in COMMUNITY

Community creator Dan Harmon is getting ready to make the long-awaited Community: The Movie that fans have been hoping for ever since the series ended in 2015. The show was such a well-written comedy with an outstanding cast of talented comedians. It was popular in its first run, but has seen even more viewers joining the fandom since it’s gone to streaming, especially during the pandemic.

Also since its run, the stars of the show have gone on to work on other fun projects in their respective careers, but maybe none more than Donald Glover, who played Troy Barnes in the show. The star went on to work on his musical career as Childish Gambino, and became a two-time Emmy-winner for the show Atlanta, which he created and starred in. He also played Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars universe, Simba in The Lion King, and many other roles of which he should be proud. So what made Dan Harmon cast him as a newbie in Hollywood? He can actually thank The Russo Brothers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame) for that.

In a 2022 interview with MSNBC (via /Film), Harmon talked about the pair, who originally directed and produced on the Community series, saying that Joe Russo saw Glover "doing work on YouTube and things like that." He went on to say: 

"Joe Russo said, 'Let's just cast stars if we can spot them.' You know, let's not worry about who fits the character or what you had in mind; let's just cast people that are clearly going to be stars. And that's a very — the Russo brothers were geniuses in casting. And Donald was a figure that they put in front of me, and then I immediately said, 'Yeah. Absolutely.' And he was clearly a genius. And I've often told stories about how we would, literally, the writers room would, if we were operating at a fast enough pace, we would put at the end of a scene, 'And then Donald says something funny.'"

He definitely had a good eye for finding stars! Glover was hilarious on that show, and it’s been cool to see him stretch out his creativity to new projects. I look forward to seeing what he does in the future, including the Community movie!