Zazie Beetz and I get off to a bad start. Best known for her role as Van in Donald Glover’s hit comedy show Atlanta — for which she bagged an Emmy nomination in 2018 — she is sitting outside a coffee shop, speaking to me via Zoom. The picture is grainy and 15 minutes in she disappears. Some time later “David” joins the call. Beetz is using the phone of her fiancé, the actor and writer David Rysdahl, and is sitting in the passenger seat of their car. “Mine is on charge,” she says apologetically, adjusting her silk headscarf, which is tied Monroe-style below the chin and held in place by two pearl hair slides.
Beetz, 30, is unperturbed by the chaotic start. A level
