Photograph by Katrina Marcinowski/HBO
Atlanta’s own Danielle Deadwyler is known for her commanding dramatic roles. Her powerful portrayal of civil rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley in the 2022 film Till, whose public unmasking of her son Emmett Till’s brutal 1955 lynching in Mississippi helped change our nation, earned stellar reviews, and subsequent roles have continued to showcase her powerhouse dramatic range.
In 2024, the Spelman alum stepped into the role of Berniece in Netflix’s adaptation of August Wilson’s iconic play The Piano Lesson, alongside Morehouse alums John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Last year, she starred as a grieving mother and widow grappling with mental health in the Athens-filmed The Woman in the Yard. More recently, she’s checking into Euphoria and is on deck to star in Oscar-winner and Sinners writer/director Ryan Coogler’s buzzy X-Files reboot.
With all that heaviness, the Midtown High School alum, who also popped up in The Bear, has been long overdue for a laugh. Fortunately, she’s getting more than her fair share in the Steve Carell-led HBO series Rooster, which was just renewed for a second season.
Photograph by Katrina Marcinowski/HBO
Atlanta magazine caught up with Deadwyler to chat about the HBO series, which stars Carell as author Greg Russo, who is known for his popular character Rooster. Through a series of wacky events involving his daughter Katie (Charly Clive), who is an art professor, and her estranged husband Archie (Phil Dunster), also a professor, Greg ends up teaching at the liberal arts college Ludlow. There, he encounters a world full of modern-day challenges he never anticipated. And Deadwyler’s Dylan, an English professor and prospective dean, is one of the few friendly faces helping him navigate it all.
How did Rooster come about for you
Rooster came about in the traditional way the auditions come. I was on the circuit for Piano Lesson and we began the conversation. And I went in, had a couple of chem reads with Steve, which were more like workshops, because I was there a long time having a good time working the scenes, getting to the heart of who the character was, and the dynamic between Dylan and Greg. It was just a joy and so much fun to work with Steve . . . it was like a complete drop into the pool, and everybody just started swimming.
What attracted you to your character, Dylan?
Dylan is not in a dramatic dynamic at all [laughs] and I was like, Let me set myself up for some healing. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary artist, I want that same experience as an actor, to be able to flow through all kinds of genres. So I’ve been looking, and my team had been looking for a comedy [that was] intentionally smart, savvy stuff. And Dylan came along.
Who is Dylan?
Dylan is as flawed as all get out. [With me] people think of Till, right? Or they think of the matriarchal role. Everything that I’ve done hasn’t been all maternal, but people look at the thing that is most shiny and associate you with that. And so Dylan is to give myself a counter to show other modalities of being woman, of being Black woman, of the maternal. Additionally, she’s a poet, she’s a writer, she’s a teacher, all places that I’ve trafficked in, but she’s doing it in a way that I am not. I have a whole separate path. So she is a distinct, unique individual, especially in an academic setting, trying to help rear thinkers. I thought that she would be an interesting individual to explore. And I needed her crash-out kind of behavior.
It’s so crazy, because this kind of show can only exist on a college campus.
Yeah, it’s the outsider inside of this space. It’s also just a critical moment to talk about institutions. There is no dividing, right? Everybody is interwoven. That’s the silliness of it all. But how are we navigating to come to a closer understanding of each other outside of this whole dualistic framework? I think that the show is really trying to tap into that. Because regardless of how counter they may be to each other, everybody’s got to come back around to dealing with each other, and that’s what this weird little cadre of people are doing.
Did you add the fact that Dylan considered going to UGA and other Georgia touchpoints to the character?
That’s all [Rooster creators] Bill [Lawrence] and Matt [Tarses]. Everybody has different aspects of themselves that come from some kind of personal sense of self in the show. She is Southern bred, and they know where I’m from.
Dylan tells Carell’s character Rooster this great story about planning to go to UGA, twenty minutes from her house, over the Ivy League school Brown because she was “scared all the other kids were going to be smarter.” Her dad surprises her with a trip to Providence, where neither of them had never gone, and she ended up falling in love with Brown. It’s a really beautiful moment.
I think my mom was the same way. She would say, Go expand yourself; do not limit your capacity. That’s not to say that you can’t expand in a local setting or a local institution. But not out of fear will you be who you have to become. And I found it deeply compelling and beautiful too.
You attended Spelman, Columbia University in New York, and Ashland University in Ohio. Which one of those experiences informed you the most with Ludlow on Rooster?
Ashland, to be quite honest, because it is so small, so tight and so towny, you know? I mean, where can you go get hot chocolate with peppermint straws in them?
It seems like Dylan is contending with gender roles in Rooster more than she’s contending with race.
There were hints of race. I don’t know if that came out in the edits as much, but definitely in regards to gender. We have a generational divide that’s happening, and they’re reckoning with it. Particularly Dylan. She’s reckoning with What does it mean to be the kind of leader that you want to be? I think that’s why this is a such a critical thing. And Bill and Matt are pushing forward the challenge of who needs to lead in this kind of time. Then there’s a lot of enlightenment about, well, I shouldn’t even say reversal, but the present-day status of sexuality and women being more aggressive in expressing their sexual needs. You see that in Dylan in the first episode, but I feel like so many other characters present that, the students, particularly the women . . . I just was compelled by it. And Dylan is supportive of it [and is] someone who’s tried to help them wisely move through all their [many] forms.
There’s a lot of buzz around Oscar-winner Ryan Coogler’s highly anticipated X-Files reboot. I’m not sure you can say much about it, but tell us as much as you can. Are you excited?
Well, yeah, I am super excited, and I don’t have much to say [laughs]. I mean, it’s critical, original. It’s legacy IP, everybody is tapping into this. This is across generations, too, and I’m excited to bring forth our offering. And Ryan is a brilliant writer and director, and [him] seasoning television is going to be a marvelous feat. So, I’m just super excited to get started.
How do you feel about people who said you couldn’t stay in Atlanta and be successful as an actress?
They have always said that, and they are not correct. The way the world has grown, I could not have imagined it being that way. I thought [I had to go to] New York and LA as well. But the way technology has impacted the casting dynamic, I was at a critical juncture doing old school submissions in a certain kind of way, as well as self-tapes and being rigorously involved in the local dynamic in indie films and just slowly stepping into a pond here, a lake here, a river there, a sea, an ocean. Everything has become extremely more refined and filtered as I’ve had more opportunities. And I’m just flowing where I must.
New episodes of Rooster drop every Sunday on HBO/HBO Max until May 10.
