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On March 31, 2006 ATL hit theaters, leaving a lasting impact on both the audience, as well as its cast and crew. Directed by Chris Robinson in his feature debut, the film followed Rashad (played by Clifford “T.I.” Harris) and his friends as they navigated their final year of high school in Atlanta, balancing responsibility, ambition, and the pull of their environment. Set against the backdrop of Georgia’s capitol, the film offered a look at a specific moment in life—one where choices begin to carry real consequences.

Over time, ATL has grown into a cult favorite, embraced for its authenticity, its soundtrack, and the way it captured the spirit of Atlanta. It also introduced several new faces to film audiences, including T.I., Lauren London, Evan Ross, and Big Boi, all stepping into their first major roles. Alongside them, a mix of rising talent and established actors helped shape a story that continues to resonate two decades later.

As the film turns 20, we take a look back at the cast who brought ATL to life—and where their journeys have taken them since.

Rashad Swann

The film’s main character, and its narrator. Born and raised in Atlanta, he and his group of friends navigate life in this Southern coming-of-age story. As the older brother of Ant, he tries to steer him clear of the easier path to the streets.

Clifford “T.I.” Harris

Since the release of ATL, Clifford “T.I.” Harris has risen to become one of the most influential rappers in Southern hip-hop. Credited with the subgenre of trap music, T.I. has sold over 15 million records, and won 3 Grammy Awards. As husband and father of 6, he’s now gearing up to release his final album, Kill The King, later this year.

Anton “Ant” Swann

Rashad’s younger brother. Very ambitious, but struggles to find his way as a teenager growing up in Atlanta.

Evan Ross

ATL marked Ross’ film debut. He has since starred in the films Pride, Mooz-lum, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2. Ross is the son of Diana Ross, and is currently the father of two.

Erin “New New” Garnett

In the film, New New was Rashad’s love interest and John Garnett’s daughter.

Lauren London

Prior to ATL, London appeared in music videos for artists such as Tyrese, Ludacris, Pharrell, and Snoop Dogg. She went on to star in films such as This Christmas, Without Remorse, and You People. She has two children—Kameron Carter and Kross Ermias Asghedom.

Benjamin “Esquire” Gordon

In Chris Robinson’s film, Esquire was Rashad’s childhood best friend. He was extremely smart—hence the nickname—and was a huge fan of New New’s father, John Garnett.

Jackie Long

Long has had a successful career in television following 2006, appearing in shows like Power Book II: Ghost, Games People Play, and Lena Waithe’s The Chi.

Teddy

Teddy was one of Rashad’s close friends, and created custom grills in Atlanta.

Jason Weaver

Weaver was already an industry veteran by the time ATL was released. As a child star, voiced Simba in The Lion King, portrayed a young Michael Jackson in The Jacksons: An American Dream, and starred in Thea and Smart Guy. Now, he plays Rashaad Marshall in The Chi.

Marcus

Marcus is the drug dealer Ant begins to work for. He serves as the antagonist of the film, as he plans to lure Ant from his brother Rashad for his own profit.

Big Boi

The rapper/producer is best known as 1/2 of the iconic rap duo Outkast. He continued to release music after his film debut, and he performed at the Super Bowl LIII halftime show as a guest of Maroon 5. In 2025, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside friend and collaborator André 3000.

John Garnett

Erin’s father and the businessman that Esquire looks up to. He is unaware of the fact that Esquire is lying about who he really is, although they are from the same walk of life.

Keith David

In a career spanning almost 50 years, David continues to work to this day, becoming a highly sought-after voice actor, and starring in shows like Abbott Elementary and the upcoming film, Spider Man: Brand New Day.

Uncle George Swann

Rashad and Ant’s uncle and guardian. When Rashad and Ant fall out about Ant’s drug dealing, George says things to Rashad he doesn’t mean, but they later make up.

Mykelti Williamson

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A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon.

As they did during the heyday of the Apollo program, which first put men on the lunar surface, spectators squeezed onto the beaches along Central Florida’s Space Coast. The crowds cheered when the powerful rocket launched into the clear sky at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time. It traveled eastward, over the Atlantic Ocean, on a journey that will take astronauts around the moon but not land there.

“We have a beautiful moonrise, and we’re headed right at it,” said Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut who is the commander of the mission, as the crew headed into space.

Tens of thousands of excited spectators exclaimed and hugged along Cocoa Beach and surrounding communities as the rocket shot into the sky on a column of fire and a long white vapor trail.

“The contrast against the blue sky was absolutely remarkable,” said Anthony Rodriguez, 35, of Orlando. “It’s just an unforgettable sight.”

The flight aboard a spacecraft named Integrity is taking Mr. Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen on what is expected to be a round trip of more than 695,000 miles to clear a path for more exploration, a new lunar landing, eventually a sustained human presence on the moon, and journeys farther out into the solar system.

The last time astronauts traveled that far was Apollo 17, in December 1972.

“After a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon,” Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference after the launch.

The mission, known as Artemis II, is the 21st-century equivalent of Apollo 8, when NASA astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders captured the attention of the world. When they launched in December 1968, it was the first time that astronauts rode on top of the mighty Saturn V rocket.

For that mission, instead of just a short test flight around Earth, the space agency audaciously decided to send the crew all the way to the moon and back, the first time humans reached another celestial body.

While many were elated with the Artemis II mission and its progress, others shrugged or continued their Wednesday, oblivious to the countdown.

In New York City, Maxime Kryvian, 37, a business owner, came to Times Square to see if any screens were broadcasting the launch. To his surprise and disappointment, none of them were.

“I was expecting to see hundreds of people crowded around to watch the launch,” he said, listening to the broadcast through earphones as it played on his own phone screen.

Mr. Kryvian said people had lost interest in space exploration. “We’ve lost a sense of shared achievement,” he said. “We keep looking at our small screens instead of the big one.”

At Tom’s Watch Bar in downtown Houston — also known as Space City and the home of NASA’s mission control for human spaceflight missions — locals were slowly packing in, but not to watch the Artemis II astronauts fly to the moon. Instead, they were looking forward to watching the Houston Rockets later in the evening.

During the launch, most of the televisions in the sports bar were tuned in to a Yankees-Mariners baseball game. A couple of the smaller screens showed NASA’s live broadcast of the mission.

During the news conference, Mr. Isaacman said he thought that when the rocket lifted off, “a lot of people would be paying attention. I suspect when some of the imagery starts to maybe come back from the moon, that’s going to further bring people into this story.”

And at the beginning of his address to the nation on Wednesday night, President Trump congratulated NASA and the astronauts for the successful launch.

“It was quite something,” he said. “These are brave people.”

Mr. Trump then quickly changed the topic to the war with Iran.

Like Apollo 8, Artemis II aims to check that the spacecraft can safely make the journey and keep its crew alive during trips to and from the moon. This particular mission will conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10.

Unlike the Apollo astronauts, who were all white men, this mission sets a number of firsts: Mr. Glover of NASA will be the first Black man to venture into deep space, and Ms. Koch of NASA will be the first woman to do so. Mr. Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency will be the first person on a moon mission who is not an American.

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada spoke with Mr. Hansen in a video call before the launch. “It fills me with pride, but it also sends a real message to Canadians,” Carney said in a clip posted on social media. Hansen added, “The fact we’ll be the second country in the world to send a human into deep space says a lot.”

In the 1960s, NASA was racing to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. This time, it does not want to fall behind the space ambitions of China, which is aiming to land its astronauts on the moon by the end of 2030. But the goal is not to win the sprint. It is to establish a continuing presence on the lunar surface, building an outpost over the next decade.

Mr. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who became the NASA administrator in December, has made major revisions to the Artemis program and rallied a work force that was battered by uncertainty and downsizing last year to focus on putting new footprints on the moon by the end of 2028.

“It’s the opening act,” Mr. Isaacman said of Artemis II, and the lessons learned from this mission will be applied to the ones that follow.

During the countdown, leaks of helium and hydrogen that scuttled plans to launch in February and March did not recur. But other technical glitches did pop up.

First, engineers resolved a problem with the rocket’s flight termination system, which destroys the rocket in the event that the crew capsule is ejected during flight. Then, late in the countdown, NASA said it was working on a problem with a battery in that crew capsule ejection system, but it concluded the problem lay with the sensor and not the battery itself.

Those issues pushed back liftoff by 11 minutes.

But then the engines ignited, lifted upward the 322-foot-tall rocket, weighing 5.75 million pounds, generating a low, loud rumble that rolled across East Central Florida.

After liftoff, another technical glitch prevented mission controllers from hearing what the astronauts were saying, even though the astronauts could hear the commands from the ground. Communications were restored after a few minutes.

There was also an undisclosed problem with the spacecraft’s toilet, prompting the crew to plan to use “backup waste management capabilities” until it could be resolved.

The first few hours in space were busy, with two firings of the upper stage of the rocket that placed the spacecraft in a large looping orbit that swung out more than 43,000 miles.

The Orion spacecraft separated from the upper stage of the rocket. Mr. Glover manually flew the spacecraft, nudging it close to the discarded stage. That mimicked the maneuvers that will be used during later missions for docking with lunar landers.

“That is a good-looking American flag,” Mr. Glover said after a maneuver brought the rocket stage with a painted flag on its side into view of the capsule’s docking camera.

On Thursday, Orion will fire its engines to push it on a path toward the moon. On Monday, it will reach the moon and swing around, passing over the far side. The astronauts will spend hours making observations of the lunar surface, including portions of the far side that have never been seen by human eyes before.

As it passes behind the moon, Artemis will set a distance record for the farthest that any humans have traveled from Earth: 252,799 miles, or 4,144 miles farther than the Apollo 13 astronauts traveled when they had to make an emergency return to Earth.

Although the mission seemed to be mostly going well so far, most of the mission still lies ahead. “We will hold our celebration until this crew is under parachutes and splashes down off the west coast of the United States,” Mr. Isaacman said.

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Thousands of excited spectators watched as the rocket rose on a column of fire into the sky above Florida. Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times

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You want that new video game so badly, but you’re trying to knock your credit card balance down. Or you’re binging your favorite TV show and can’t wait to find out if a character lives, but it’s late, and you need to be alert for work tomorrow. Just exert a little self-control, you tell yourself. But it’s so hard!

People frequently think of self-control as something that requires willpower—the effort of giving up some immediate pleasure for a long-term goal. A study from last year found that people in the U.S., the Netherlands, and China tend to write about self-control with words such as “difficult” and “unpleasant” and about people who show self-control as “virtuous.” For decades, psychologists held a similar view. In fact, one prominent theory in the 1990s called ego depletion stated that if you used the willpower “muscle” too much, it would get tired and become less effective.

But in the past decade, the science has shifted. Scientists noticed that some people found self-discipline to be completely effortless, yet still stuck to their goals better than those who had to exercise a lot of willpower. People who possess naturally high levels of self-control may create habits that rarely expose them to temptations to veer off course, says psychologist Denise de Ridder, who studies self-control at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

There has been a sea change in the field away from the “willpower” understanding of self-control towards one that focuses on specific strategies or habits that make self-discipline easier, says psychology researcher Johanna Peetz of Carleton University in Ontario. Here’s what scientists have learned.

The Importance of Routine

One of the first clues that the conventional wisdom about willpower was wrong came in 2015. In six varied experiments—one of which lasted more than a year—researchers studied high school students’ self-control. The result: whether students who reported high self-control were pursuing good grades, regular exercise, or better sleep, they relied on routines for studying, exercising, or going to bed. These structured habits—doing the same thing in the same place at the same time of day—were more likely to lead to long-term success than attempting to squelch counterproductive impulses in the moment. People with these good habits reported doing them automatically, without having to think about it.

Since then, other researchers have studied what the average person struggling to stay on track might learn from people who naturally show self-control. In an experiment, de Ridder and colleagues found that establishing small, repeated habits can help achieve goals. They recruited participants who reported struggling to stick to goals, then asked them to pick something they wanted to get better at, such as eating more healthfully, exercising, or protecting the environment. They were encouraged to pick a modest daily goal—for example, exercising for 10 minutes, eating some vegetables for lunch or recycling. Participants logged their progress with an app for three months and through questionnaires. Although the study did not find a connection between the participants’ capacity for self-control and their habit formation, those who completed the study and consistently achieved their small goal reported that they felt they had developed a stronger habit.

Practice Makes Habits Easier

Establishing habits like these can make sticking with a challenging behavior feel easier over time, de Ridder says. In a 2020 study, she and her colleagues followed another group of people who chose a goal that had been hard for them to achieve and kept diaries about their progress over four months. The goals fell into the same general categories as those in the other study. Participants chose, for example, to eat fruit at breakfast, be more patient with a friend, or save money in the supermarket. The more times people practiced the behavior, the more they improved their ability to use self-discipline. Establishing a habit does require effort at first, de Ridder says, but after about three months, it often gets easier.

It makes sense to see self-control not merely as foregoing pleasure, de Ridder says, but also as being able “to create adaptive routines and strategically avoid conflicts, which in turn leaves more room for attending to what one finds important in life.” These structures can help organize your surroundings in a way that makes doing what you think is good for you feel more natural.

Mindset Shift

Habits are not the only advantage people with high self-discipline may have. A 2025 study found that they may actually prefer doing something meaningful—that advances their goals—rather than something that’s just fun or relaxing. In an at-home experiment, participants completed psychological profiles that measured the strength of their self-control trait. Then they were asked to name four things they would do if they had an unexpected free hour. They rated these activities—reading, sleeping, baking, exercising, grocery shopping, and the like—by whether they found them primarily enjoyable or meaningful.

The participants were then told to do anything they liked for the next hour (while being compensated). The people high in self-control chose activities they rated as meaningful, such as exercising or doing chores; the others went for the purely enjoyable, such as taking a nap or listening to music. “Those high in trait self-control would not choose to just lay down on the sofa and dream away for 60 minutes,” says University of Zurich psychologist Katharina Bernecker, lead author of the study. They didn’t have to use willpower to suppress an urge for a nap. “We concluded that maybe the story that they are so good in impulse control and suppressing pleasure may not be the full story.” In fact, they take pleasure in doing activities that are constructive.

Is it possible for the average person learn to reframe their preferences so that they will enjoy doing the hard—but meaningful—thing that’s been haunting their to-do list? There’s no proven tool yet to help a person do this. Nevertheless, creating small habits can still help make a tough task easier. Think about what’s tripping you up and what habits you might use to help.

If you’re having trouble clicking off the screen at night, you could try setting your alarm for half an hour before bed and training yourself to click off as soon as your alarm blasts. If you want to take up running, but something always derails you, create a routine in which you run one mile every day before breakfast.

After a few months, the research suggests, pursuing your goal will get easier. Who knows? If given a free hour, you might even prefer to take a run than a nap.

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1st mind-blowing Eiffel Tower fact

Gustave Eiffel

Eiffel_shutterstock_editorial_2550891a_large © Images Group/REX/Shutterstock

Gustave Eiffel did not design the Eiffel Tower

himself

Two of his senior engineers, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, drafted the first version in 1884. At first, Eiffel wasn’t impressed by their sketches—he thought they looked too plain. But once architect Stephen Sauvestre added the signature arches and glass pavilion, Eiffel got on board and began promoting the project under his name.

Eiffel_shutterstock_117401284 © Artgraphixel/Shutterstock

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2nd mind-blowing Eiffel Tower fact

Spain didn’t want it

Before Paris said yes, Barcelona said no. Eiffel initially proposed the tower to city officials in Barcelona, but the idea was rejected. Historical records suggest that it was turned down either due to budget concerns or a lack of interest in such a bold and unconventional design.

Eiffel_shutterstock_242818009 © Everett Historical/Shutterstock

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Eiffel_shutterstock_242293924 © Everett Historical/Shutterstock

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Success in President Trump’s war on Iran now appears partly to depend on whether Washington can reopen the Strait of Hormuz, stave off global economic decline, and avoid another endless war.

Turkish history offers both a warning and a way forward about how to deal with this vital waterway, which Iran has effectively closed, sharply reducing the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. Specifically, the lessons concern the Dardanelles, the narrow strait linking the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara and, beyond it, the Bosporus and the Black Sea.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most important energy choke points, carrying oil equivalent to one-fifth of global consumption and roughly one-fifth of the global liquefied natural gas trade. That is precisely why the temptation to address the problem militarily is so dangerous.

On paper, choke points can create a false sense of simplicity, especially for a superpower that enjoys a vast technological and military edge over its adversary. To war planners in Washington, a narrow passage can look like a technical problem to be overcome by force. In reality, strategic waterways are never merely geographic bottlenecks; they are tests of sovereignty and the balance of power.

That is what the British and French discovered during World War I when they tried to force passage through the Dardanelles, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli campaign, as it was named for the peninsula that runs along the strait, of 1915-16 was Winston Churchill’s brainchild as first lord of the Admiralty. The Ottomans had entered the war on Germany’s side and seemed weak. Britain’s idea was to free up passage in the strait, knock the Ottomans out of the war, and reopen supply routes to Russia. Instead, the campaign became one of the war’s bloodiest disasters for the Allies, killing more than 130,000 men — roughly 44,000 Allied troops and at least 86,000 Ottoman soldiers — and costing Churchill his post.

In Turkish memory, Gallipoli is a story of national birth. Mustafa Kemal, the Ottoman officer who would later become Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, made his name in the defense of the straits. “Canakkale cannot be passed,” a reference to a city on the strait, remains a potent slogan.

The British defeat also left the Ottomans blocking Russia’s only viable warm-water exit to the Mediterranean for grain exports and military aid, deepening the economic and military crisis that fueled revolutionary unrest at home, hastening the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in 1917, and the Bolshevik seizure of power.

A U.S. effort to open the Strait of Hormuz by force would be risky, military experts warn. Iran can exploit the advantages of asymmetric warfare, mining the passage and using drones, missiles, and small-boat swarm attacks to make fighting for a narrow waterway costly even for a superior navy.

But for President Trump, the choice does not need to be between a military gamble and acquiescing to Iranian control over the strait — and, by extension, over global energy markets. The United States can borrow a page from Turkish history and push for a negotiated maritime agreement, taking inspiration from the 1936 Montreux Convention. The document is foundational for modern Turkey and ensures that this critical waterway stays open while acknowledging the sovereignty and security concerns of the state that overlooks it.

For much of the 19th and early 20th century, control of the straits stood at the center of Russia’s imperial ambitions and European great-power rivalry. After World War I, the new Turkish republic accepted a regime of free passage and demilitarization under international supervision. But by the mid-1930s, Europe was rearming, collective security was eroding and Turkey feared growing pressure from both the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy. Ankara pushed for a new convention that would guarantee safe passage without sacrificing the republic’s own survival.

Thus came the Montreux Convention, which was signed by 10 nations, including France, Britain, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and several other Black Sea nations. Montreux preserved freedom of passage for merchant shipping in peacetime while restoring Turkey’s sovereignty over the straits. It also gave Turkey greater discretion in time of war to impose restriction on warships — which Ankara invoked early in the war in Ukraine to restrict the Russian fleet’s access to the Black Sea. In other words, Montreux was a rules-based compromise between openness and sovereignty: It kept commerce moving while recognizing that the state controlling the waterway could not be expected to ignore its own security.

This model offers a useful lesson and perhaps an off-ramp in talks with Iran, even though Montreux is not a copy-and-paste model for Hormuz. Turkey in 1936 was revising an existing international regime in peacetime; Hormuz sits inside an active war.

The geography is also more complicated. The Dardanelles are controlled by one state, Turkey. Hormuz lies between Iran and Oman, with the main shipping lanes largely in Omani waters. Any Hormuz version of Montreux would have to be very specific: no attacks on merchant shipping, no mining of transit lanes, rules to avoid conflict between naval forces, provisions during wartime to allow for restrictions on warships from non-Gulf states. There should also be some outside mechanism — through Oman, the United Nations, or a small contact group of Arab Gulf nations — to monitor compliance.

Washington should test Iran’s appetite for tying a cease-fire to a multilateral framework that guarantees freedom of passage. At its core, a Hormuz convention would need to do what Montreux did: give Iran something it values in exchange for legally binding, verifiable commitments to permit commercial passage. A durable peace in the Gulf is unlikely to come from pretending Iran has no residual capacity to threaten the strait. Nor can the international community accept a situation in which Tehran turns a global artery into a weapon. A deal would have to recognize the security concerns of Iran and the other Gulf states, such as Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and be tied to a broader cease-fire.

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Chantal Jahchan

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