Quotes from Hiro Murai

I used to be terrified of heights as a kid.

I did a short film with Donald Glover for one of his Childish Gambino projects, and Flying Lotus was an actor in it.

It's something that I've always been attracted to, that idea of letting everything happen in a single frame.

I like stories where it feels like you're only seeing a small window of a bigger world.

People have a natural tendency to read emotions out of faces, so when you see a face that is hyperreal but without the life behind the eyes, it's really off-putting and intriguing.

I got into film school thinking I was going to make features, like every other film geek.

I've never been robbed in person, but I've gotten my car broken into a couple of times.

I think to truly not know what to expect out of the story - to create a world where nothing is guaranteed - is sort of the backbone of 'Atlanta.'

Every time I've rushed into something, that's usually when I have regrets.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that once we make a thing and release it, my turn to talk is done. Ideally, you're saying everything you want to say in the product you're making, and you don't have to add commentary to it afterwards.

If I were FX, I wouldn't have hired me.

Whenever you're making something, you're hoping that it connects with somebody in some big way, but I'd have to be crazy to expect that.

I remember, when 'Atlanta' first happened, I didn't know what to expect. It felt like it was a lot of responsibility.

In the case of, like, Childish Gambino, he is someone who is a writer by trade, so he is very meticulous about how he writes his ideas. I don't do this with a lot of artist, but he would give me a treatment that he wants to do, and I'll go off that; then I'll give him feedback and pitch him my ideas.

'Atlanta' is Wild West-y - every corner of the city is trying to get by under its own rules. There's no single narrative. At the outer edges, the overgrown parking lots and project blocks, the city is a few yards away from apocalypse, and if you slow down, it could engulf you.

I think a season of 'Atlanta' bounces back between classic sitcom structure and genre movies.

Your understanding of culture can be very skewed sometimes, depending on what you're taking in!

In Japan, animation is a big part of your media diet. I moved out to Los Angeles at 9, and when I got homesick, I would watch anime.

I'm a first-generation Japanese immigrant.

The most difficult thing about music videos is that a lot of young filmmakers come into the medium, and they have so many different ideas, but they need to understand what the musician wants.

I'm one of those people who keep a dream journal.

Pilots are tricky because there are so many things you have to accomplish.

Whether it's a TV show or a music video, the seed of the idea is what's driving my decisions, not the format or the outcome.

Part of the fun is finding out how elastic that box is and, you know, test the limits of what TV shows can do or what a music video can do.