Paper Boi, a.k.a. Alfred Miles, the rising rapper on FX’s “Atlanta” can be labeled as many things: hilarious, lazy and intimidating amongst many other adjectives, but we can all agree on one thing to call him — lovable.
“I love this guy. I love Alfred,” Brian Tyree Henry, the actor who plays Paper Boi, tells TheWrap’s Stuart Brazell. “Alfred is every guy that I know. Everyone has an Alfred, I feel. Everyone knows that person, or has that cousin, or has that friend, or has that homie.”
The “Atlanta” star revealed that there’s much more to Alfred than his hard Paper Boi persona and he wants to be able to capture that.
“Alfred to me has a lot of heart, he’s very funny, he loves his family, he loves his friends, he’s about his money — his paper,” Henry explained.
The latter point was proven in the episode titled “The Club,” during which Paper Boi slapped a club manager with a stack of bills while trying to retrieve money owed to him.
“I think we all know somebody like that if we’re not Alfred ourselves,” Henry added.
As Season 1 of Donald Glover’s hit comedy-drama comes to a close, Henry said there will be plenty to talk about when it returns for Season 2 and hinted at the possibility of Alfred and Darius (his right-hand man played by Keith Stanfield) opening up a cookie company.
In preparation for Tuesday night’s season finale, all Henry could reveal was: “What is old is new again.
The Top 8 'Atlanta' Characters Ranked, Because Why Not (Photos)
From black Justin Bieber to the random guy on the bus with the Nutella sandwich, we've ranked a bunch of "Atlanta" characters simply because we could.
FX
1. Darius (Keith Stanfield) Darius is quite possibly the strangest, most unusual character on "Atlanta." Half the time we don't know what he's talking about, but he's basically a visionary. Darius really won us over when he left Paper Boi at the club and went home to eat cereal and play video games. We want to be his best friend.
FX
2. Zan (Freddie Kuguru) Zan is quite possibly one of our favorite people. He trolled Paper Boi on social media and then gave him for a ride in his pizza delivery car. Who does that? Zan. Zan does that.
FX
3. Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry) Paper Boi's lyrics may not have much depth to them, but his character sure does.
On the "B.A.N." episode he says “It’s hard for me to care about this when nobody cares about me as a black, human man," noting that even though he supports tolerance for everyone, that Caitlyn Jenner isn't special. "But where’s tolerance for people like me?"
Also, he slapped a club manager with a stack of money. How can we not love him?
FX
4. Van (Zazie Beetz) Van comes off as this uptight woman who never wants to give Earn a break, but we see there's much more to her in "Value."
She lets loose, goes out and smokes some marijuana forgetting that she has a drug test the next day.
We soon start to see Van is just a successful, independent woman who knows what she wants and we love her for that.
FX
5. Ahmad White (Emmett Hunter) Ahmad White is probably the most elusive mystical character on the show. We're not even sure if he's a real person or not, but he had Nutella sandwiches on deck so he's winning for us.
FX
6. Alicia (Precious Bright) Alicia is definitely bougie and a little bit of a gold digger, but who can blame her? She's just out here trying to have a good time and get hers and we're all a little jealous.
FX
7. Black Justin Bieber (Austin Crute) Black Justin Bieber could not have been more obnoxious. At one point, a fan screams "I love you, Justin!" to which he replies "I know b----."
He apologizes at the end of the episode, but we all know it's disingenuous--just like him.
FX
8. Earn (Donald Glover) Earn just seems stressed out all the damn time. It's for good reason though, he's flat out broke and basically homeless and he keeps messing things up with Van.
He's very intelligent, but not very fun. Sorry, Earn.
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Since ”Atlanta“ has been so random with us, we decided to return the favor and rank an arbitrary number of its characters.
From black Justin Bieber to the random guy on the bus with the Nutella sandwich, we've ranked a bunch of "Atlanta" characters simply because we could.