LaKeith Stanfield on Why He Loved Filming ‘Atlanta’ Season 3 in Amsterdam, Returning to His High School Drama Class

Atlanta is going to Europe, and with the show’s third season fast approaching, Lakeith Stanfield discussed what it was like shooting the show overseas.

“We shot in Paris, Amsterdam, and London,” Stanfield told James Corden on Monday. “One of the best places for me was Amsterdam. I love being out there… experimenting with the experience in consciousness, seeing where you can go, experimenting with things there. It is much more liberally accepted in certain parts, so I loved that part. And we shot in the Red Light District, which was really interesting because there were people who—get this—live there. People live there.”

Amsterdam’s Red Light District is known for prostitutes who stand in street-level windows and doors to entice customers. “I didn’t know people actually live there,” Stanfield continued. “There was this guy that lived above where we were shooting and he was kind of harassing us the whole time ‘cause he was trying to get in with the Red Light stuff and we’re like ‘No, we’re filming.’ So then he was like, ‘Oh ok, but I still wanna get in.’ And I’m like, ‘You can’t get in.’”

Elsewhere in his Late Late Show appearance, Stanfield discussed going back to his high school in Victorville, California, and speaking to his old drama teacher’s class, explaining that the teacher was “one of the only teachers I really liked.”

“It was weird because I’ve got some success and I come back in a nice car, I had a Lamborghini, and I pulled back up home and it was this stark contrast of where I came from, to where I made it to,” Stanfield said. “It was astounding to me and it was a beautiful, poetic metaphor of how far I’d come.”

Stanfield also reflected on the huge odds he faced to make it in Hollywood. “It was kinda difficult to get outside of my hometown,” he said. “I never thought I was gonna go outside, let alone see the world. So it was a beautiful thing to bring back a gift…not only just the gift of ‘you can do this’ and ‘you can make it out,’ but also it’s like I can talk to the people and directly tell them, ‘Don’t think you can’t do something.’ ‘Cause you can—I was exactly where you are.’”

Watch the entire interview up top.