00:00What has Atlanta meant to you over these last five years, six years?
00:05Yeah, seven years, actually.
00:09It's meant so much to me.
00:11I definitely think of my life as a pre- and post-Atlanta sort of experience.
00:17Atlanta fundamentally changed my life in terms of my career
00:21and thereby, I guess, everything else surrounding that.
00:25And I feel like I was afforded a community that really supported me
00:33in terms of we all were going through this transition together.
00:38And to have each other to lean on during this shift in our lives
00:44was, I think, really special and really needed.
00:49But yeah, I will always love Van.
00:51I made a necklace with her name on it, which I wear almost every day.
00:56I feel very much like I need to take care of her
00:59and take care of this character, make sure that she knows she's loved.
01:06And so, yeah, I mean, Atlanta is huge.
01:09And I'm sad to say goodbye, but also happy that we're all able to move on
01:15to other things and do all our other passions as well.
01:18So, yeah.
01:19And in the same vein, what has Van meant to you, you know,
01:23with the necklace and everything?
01:24Besides changing your life personally and professionally,
01:27this character, what has her arc and her story meant to you over the years?
01:31Yeah, I think particularly with season three and season four,
01:35you know, I just really felt like she was this person that needed to be stable
01:46and needed to be the breadwinner and needed to,
01:51couldn't have any freedom in her life,
01:53any type of chaos in her life because people were relying on her.
01:58And to explore her chaos in season three and to explore her freedom,
02:03sort of season three, season four,
02:05I just felt almost like this, like,
02:10middle finger to all these other characters that get to do it all the time,
02:14you know, like Paperboy and Darius and Earn,
02:17who get to have sort of this wild element to their lives
02:24that Van wasn't allowed to have.
02:26And I just think it's interesting, like,
02:28when Van has it, then everybody's freaking out,
02:30even audience members.
02:31Like, I was getting all these messages on my Instagram,
02:36like, mad that Van wasn't with her daughter.
02:39And I just felt like, yeah, she's doing her own thing.
02:43Like, Earn can do his own thing, but she can't.
02:47And I just felt very protective of her.
02:49And I want her to continue to thrive and, you know,
02:55be in her own body and her own decisions
02:58and not doing things that she feels like she has to do,
03:02but doing things because she wants to do them,
03:04which includes loving her daughter and being a mother.
03:10You know, I think she wants those things,
03:12but needed other outlets as well.
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