Donald Glover: Hollywood's Most In-Demand Polymaths

Donald Glover Actor, musician, writer, producer Donald Glover is tired. Like, bone-tired—the kind of tired that crushes his normally bright voice into a monotonous murmur.

- Matthew Shaer

“This is a different level of production than anything I’ve ever been involved in, you know?” he says. It’s close to 9 p.m. London time, and Glover is coming off another grueling 10-hour day on the set of his latest movie—the as-yet untitled Star Wars film in which he plays the beloved Empire Strikes Back and  Return of the Jedi character

Lando Calrissian. It’s a part that has required Glover to not only undergo intensive stunt training but also participate in daily weight-lifting sessions and abide by a strict muscle-building diet. Most nights, he says, he leaves the set barely able to walk.

Though shooting a mega budget sci-fi blockbuster has proven more extreme than his typical workday, Glover has lately been getting used to fatigue. Consider the relentless pace of his last 24 months, a period that has cemented his reputation as one of the entertainment industry’s premier polymaths. In addition to playing Calrissian in the eagerly awaited Han Solo–focused prequel (due next summer), he will appear in this July’s Spider-Man: Homecoming in a mysterious role that has been the subject of much online speculation. (Glover won’t divulge anything for fear of, as he puts it, getting “dragged away by the Marvel police.”) Last December, while still making the Spidey film, Glover released his third official album under the name Childish Gambino—the well-received Awaken, My Love!—and in September he put on a sold-out, three-day multimedia event in Joshua Tree, California, to debut his new music.