Brian Tyree Henry

Acting, for me, was kind of a way of survival, honestly. I'm the baby boy out of four different sisters, and I grew up in a house with so many different personalities that acting was the only way to not go to therapy.

I usually get approached by older white ladies of a certain class, with their pearls and, you know, their Talbots on and everything, and they're like, 'We just have to say, we know we're not your demographic, but we love Paper Boi; we really love this show, and we love what you're doing.' It's totally cool.

I really love Instagram for the artwork.

My father was retired military, and my mother was an educator. She was incredibly creative. I used to love going to her school during the summer and helping her decorate her classroom. I would draw Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck. She was a sixth grade teacher. She and my father are the ones that got me into my love of music.

I love the element of surprise, throwing people off of what they think they know about what I can do and who I am. I just want to keep doing that.

I love that you can just walk into the club and hear Young Jeezy or hear Fetty, and it's on.

TV can be a thread between all of us, and it can be a powerful tool to examine life and love and what we all have in common as humans.

Life should be art, right?

Music has always been a part of my life, and it helps me a lot because it speaks for me when I can't speak for myself.

The projects that I've been fortunate enough to do are all projects where I followed my heart. I didn't follow the money or the names. It's all about reflecting my life and my art.

Atlanta, in itself, is its own living, breathing thing.

Atlanta' is really trying to put that out there: these are just the lives of these people in this city, and this city is its own breathing, living thing, too. So how do you navigate through life, especially with dreams and aspirations in a world that tells you that you don't deserve to have them.