Chevy Chase made 'racist jokes' on the set of Community
Chevy Chase would make ‘racial cracks between takes’ on hit sitcom Community at the expense of his co-star Donald Glover, according to reports.
In a new profile on Glover in The New Yorker, the show’s creator Dan Harmon revealed that Chase ‘often tried to disrupt’ scenes with his co-star.
“People think you’re funnier because you’re black,” the National Lampoon star would reportedly say.
However, it appears that Glover resigned himself to Chase’s behaviour.
“Chevy was the first to realize how immensely gifted Donald was, and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off,” says Harmon in the piece.
“I remember apologizing to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-P.C. verbiage, and Donald said, ‘I don’t even worry about it.’”
Glover added: “I just saw Chevy as fighting time – a true artist has to be O.K. with his reign being over. I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere – he’s almost too human.”
In response to the comments, Chase told The New Yorker: “I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light.”
But it’s not the first accusation of racism and generally objectionable behaviour from Chase on the set of the show.
In a 2013 interview with Howard Stern, Glover’s co-star Joel McHale said that Chase would also use the n-word on set.
“When he said it, it was like ‘We are now at Defcon 1,’” McHale said.
“He said that Richard Pryor said it was okay for him to call him that. He literally… he used that.”
Glover appeared in the show for five seasons, before quitting, going on to make his own series Atlanta for HBO.
His appearance in Lena Dunham’s show Girls is also discussed in the profile.
Glover unleashed a torrent of abuse at Dunham’s character Hannah in the show, taking aim at her perceived ‘white privilege’, a torrent which it turns out was all ad-libbed by Glover.
“Every massive insult of white women was one hundred per cent him,” said Dunham. “I e-mailed him later to say ‘I hope you feel the part on Girls didn’t tokenize you,’ and his response was really Donald-y and enigmatic: ‘Let’s not think back on mistakes we made in the past, let’s just focus on what lies in front of us.’”
Next up, Glover will be on screen playing Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars spin-off movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, due out in the UK on May 25.
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