28 October 2019_Esquire
TV
WANTS TO
SEE THIS
GUY NAKED
William Jackson Harper
of “The Good Place” reflects
on abs and the
afterlife By Matt MillerOne night in 2017, William Jackson Harper found
himself at a dance party with his Good Place co-
stars. There he was with Kristen Bell, Jameela Jamil,
and Ted Danson, who dances with “a lot of hands,
a lot of faces,” as Harper describes. “It was one of those
moments where I had to take stock of my life and just
really appreciate that I’m on a set with this cast,” he
says. “And I was getting paid to do it.”
A few years earlier, before he was cast on the be-
loved NBC comedy, Harper, then a theater actor, had
considered leaving the industry. He was getting work,
but “I was still broke all the time, and I was tired of it,”
he says. “It felt like I was going to always have several
roommates; I was always going to be onstage in the
last week of a play wondering if I had enough money
to get to next month.”
Then came The Good Place, which follows a group
of strangers trying to navigate the existential, ethical,
religious, and philosophical quandaries of the after-
life. The show has racked up a number of Emmy and
Golden Globe nominations and has won a Peabody.
Despite its success and dedicated fan base, creator
Mike Schur made the bold choice to wrap up the se-
ries on his terms with season 4.
the Big BiteDEEP THOUGHTS
Harper plays the philosophy nerd
Chidi on “The Good Place.”The Good Place
“will exist as
this little psychedelic
bullet train of
art...as opposed to
slowly but surely
just becoming a show
that no one
likes because we ran
out of ideas.”Though he doesn’t want to say goodbye to the show,
Harper sees the decision to end The Good Place as “the
right vision.” He says these concise four seasons “will
exist as this little psychedelic bullet train of art...as
opposed to slowly but surely just becoming a show that
no one likes because we ran out of ideas.”
Big ideas have never been lacking on The Good
Place, which has Harper’s character, Chidi, often lec-
turing about the nuances of Aristotle. That doesn’t
mean the show is all homework, however. The Good
Place turned Harper into something of a heart-
throb after an episode with a lot of shirtless Chidi
went viral.
The actor, who was terrified about doing a shirtless
scene, dieted and worked out relentlessly before shoot-
ing, and even avoided social media when the episode
aired. He didn’t know what anyone thought until, as
he says, “My buddy texted me and he said, ‘Yo, Twit-
ter wants Chidi to get naked.’ ”
He assures me that the final season won’t feature na-
ked Chidi. “Trying to maintain that kind of shape for
me—it’s tough. I’m 39, man. That was not fun to do.”
Even though the series won’t be appeasing the Inter-
net’s thirstiness, he does hope the finale is satisfying for
fans. There’s no way to find answers to the eternal ex-
istential questions, but the show has stayed grounded
in concepts that people continually grapple with. “We
can start from that foundation. Then from there, we
just make it up,” Harper says. “Who knows if this bears
any resemblance to what exists beyond us, you know?”
One thing he does tell me is that the ending is “beau-
tiful, and we go to a place that we haven’t gone in the
show thus far.” Which is interesting phrasing, consid-
ering that in its first three seasons the show has not ac-
tually been to the titular Good Place. So I ask whether
he means this “place” in the final season is of the phys-
ical or emotional sort. “I’m not going to answer that
one,” Harper says. “I’m gonna leave that one out there.”
As for what exists beyond The Good Place? In
the summer he starred in the critically acclaimed
daylight-horror film Midsommar. And this fall he’ll
be opposite Anne Hathaway in Todd Haynes’s legal
drama about an environmental suit against DuPont.
He’ll also appear on Amazon’s Jack Ryan. Details
about his role are scarce, but he does say his charac-
ter keeps his shirt on.