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With ‘We Broke Up,’ William Jackson Harper continues to find himself attracted to the unconventional
In the first three minutes of the new semiromantic dramedy “We Broke Up,” Doug makes two momentous, life-altering decisions. First, he proposes to his longtime girlfriend, Lori (Aya Cash), and when she vomits in response — an involuntary reaction but a rejection just the same — he dumps her.
In other words, in his opening scene as a romantic leading man, William Jackson Harper definitively declares he is not Chidi Anagonye, his beloved but endlessly indecisive character from “The Good Place.” “We Broke Up” arrived in theaters and on streaming services this month.
Early in his career, Harper starred on the children’s TV show “The Electric Company,” but he was primarily a serious stage actor, appearing offBroadway in “Ruined,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about war-torn Congo, and as activist Stokely Carmichael on Broadway in “All the Way.” He has returned to the theater and even written the plays “We Live Here” and “Travisville,” which ran off-Broadway in 2018.
Then came “The Good Place,” for which he earned an Emmy nomination and for which he is “really grateful,” even as he strives to find roles that contrast with the one that might draw viewers to his movies and readers to an article like this one … in which he is still asked about Chidi and “The Good Place.”
Harper spoke by video last week about the issues of race in the roles he plays and about why his next play may consist largely of punctuation. This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Q
This script starts like a rom-com and then gets deeper as it subverts the genre. Were you sold on the script from the beginning or did it take you awhile to really want in?
A
It definitely took me to the end of the script to know if it was something I was interested in. But that’s the norm for me. Some things start out really great and end up in these well-worn paths. I like to look at the thing as a whole and make a decision. Not that I’m always just getting scripts and making choices; usually I’m auditioning.
Q
Were you looking for a romantic leading man role?
A
I wasn’t. I’m not a big romcom guy; it’s not the sort of thing I watch a lot of, but for me, there are aspects of the character and the relationship that I find really intriguing and specific. There was a lot of nuance to play with that didn’t lead into tropes.
Also, I worked with Jeff Rosenberg on “The Good Place,” and I’ve followed Laura Jacqmin as a playwright and she’s really talented.
Q
This role, like your parts in movies like “They Remain,” seems consciously un-Chidilike.
A
I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to play Chidi. It also opened up doors and I’m going to walk through some of them. But I’m making it my business to not play the same role over and over. It would get boring. Moving from one character to a very different character is what’s exciting about being an actor — you try different things on and see if you can get them to work and sometimes they don’t. Throwing yourself into each one is the best part.
Q
You are often in comedies, but you play your characters realistically and keep the stories grounded. Yet I saw where you talked about how you would have loved to have tried the goofy and outrageous role of Jason Mendoza, played by Manny Jacinto, on “The Good Place.” Are you still hoping to get yourself a role like that?
A
Part of that desire came from the fact that Manny broke me up on set more than anybody else — he made me laugh in scenes so often where I shouldn’t have been laughing because he made such weird choices and they were perfect. And I felt, I want to do that too, I want to do that too.
I was more of a straight man on “The Good Place,” but I would like to try playing something outlandish and really weird and make it sing. It’s a muscle I haven’t exercised in a while and I’d like a shot at it.
Q
The one thing “We Broke Up” shares with “The Good Place” is that you are in an interracial relationship, yet race is never mentioned. Your next project is “The Underground Railroad” on Amazon and that, as well as your plays, deals specifically with the history and legacy of racism and inequity in America. Are you seeking a balance or does it just work out this way?
A
As a Black artist, I do think about race. It does get thrown in my face in certain ways, and I have to react to it in some capacity. I don’t try to avoid race in some works and embrace it in others. I’m just playing it as it lays. We’re always getting fed news about how racism is wrecking our society and it’s really easy to latch onto that as something everyone’s feeling all the time, but sometimes you do get a break from it and are not conscious of it. That feels as real as race playing a role in a relationship — it’s not always the case but I think it happens a fair amount.
I don’t think one should just erase cultural differences, but there are times where it’s germane to a story and times where it’s not. And this is one of those times where it’s not. This story made no mention of race at all but the movie works with a multicultural cast. That’s great; it’s a good direction to move toward.
Q
Did you return to playwriting during the lockdown?
A
I tried. I don’t know if anyone else is going through this, but I’ve been really uninspired. There was just a heaviness around everything. It was really hard to focus.
I wrote 30 pages of one thing and 10 pages of another. One dealt with race and I said, “I’m sick of dealing with this right now; I want to write something light,” but I couldn’t complete that because all I was thinking about was the state of the world and I felt paralyzed.
Maybe as we start to come back and interact with each other and get out of the house I’ll be inspired to finish these stories or start something else. Sometimes I’m doing a reading or shooting something and there’ll be a snippet of something and I think, what if this snippet actually comes in a completely different story, if this one interaction is a piece of a larger thing that has nothing to do with what I was just writing or shooting? I find I’m inspired by those moments, where I can think, “What if … ?”
Not being around creative people all day every day, that impulse sort of dims. I totally get more inspired being on set or in a room.
Q
Does socializing also help you find scenes and snippets?
A
Being around people helps. I’m naturally a little introverted, so I listen. I pay attention to people a lot. I find people are really funny and say really surprising things and are really insightful. I learn something from someone every day that I am out and about.
When I’m home alone, I’m generally silent and staring off in the middle distance. That doesn’t lend itself to any sort of inspiration. Now that I’m spending a lot of time inside my own brain, I’m having a hard time even making people sound like people when I’m writing things. I might as well have written a bunch of semicolons.
Q
So your next play will be an avant-garde work filled with moody silence and people speaking punctuation out loud?
A
It’ll be weird as hell to everyone else, but I’ll think it’s interesting. I’d think, this makes sense, right?