“I do a job that’s hated by everybody and anybody on both sides of the fence, and it ain’t even doin’ that well”

Sigh. Brad Pitt is getting his own TV series (right? I though the was busy designing home furnishings) because he really took to some New Yorker article from back in 2010. The piece examines, “Letter from Buffalo,” about an ex-cocaine dealer named Jimmy who’s working as a debt collector in the Bailey-Delavan area—one of the poorest areas in the city. Despite the area’s unfortunate poverty-stricken circumstances, the debt collecting business is  a steady. The writer follows Jimmy on a normal day, where he runs his own debt collection agency. Though Jimmy admits to hating the idea of his work situation, it supports his 5 kids.

Throughout the story you get a feel for Jimmy’s past life as somewhat of a “gangster,” where he dealt large quantities of cocaine, all the way up to his present-day struggle in the debt collection biz—not t0 mention his role as “Mr. Mom,” with the kids.

So after re-examining this story, HBO of course was like, “yes! A show about a gangster? Obvi!” And then the rest was history.

(via Vulture; photo via The New Yorker)