I’ve never sold phony medicine or been run down by a truck full of boner pills—but like Eleanor Shellstrop, the protagonist of NBC’s The Good Place, I figured I could benefit from a little moral advice. So I turned to the show’s most reliable expert: William Jackson Harper, who has spent two full seasons playing the ethics professor Chidi Anagonye. At the top of our interview, I had to ask: What does he think is the secret to being a good person?
"In my limited knowledge and wisdom, probably the best thing to do is to not force your will upon anyone else," Harper says. "Try to bring as much joy as you possibly can into your life, and the lives of everyone around you."
He pauses thoughtfully. "And I’ll stop there—because if I say anything else, I’ll probably disagree with myself within five minutes."
So yes: When it comes to good-naturedly second-guessing yourself, William Jackson Harper and Chidi have at least one thing in common. As Chidi—his first recurring TV role since starring in the PBS Kids series The Electric Company—Harper serves as one of TV’s most hilarious straight men, and the moral center of a show with an unusual fixation on what it means to be good. Following a GQ photo shoot, we had a long chat about his two seasons on The Good Place, and where the show might be going next.
I was like, "There’s no way I’m getting this." [laughs] It was a straight-to-series with Ted Danson and Kristen Bell! There is no way I am getting this job. I knew it would be fun—and these scenes were great—but someone else was getting this. I just knew it. And there are some really good actors I saw in the test [for Chidi] who I thought could have nailed it, too.
We had dummy sides. [Ed note: “Sides” are the script an actor uses in an audition.] I was going in for a guy named Chris, and the sides entailed this whole thing: Me and Eleanor were meeting at a conference for The Innocence Project, and it turns out she’s not really working with The Innocence Project. I find that out after we’ve been friends for a while. It was a completely different scenario, but the bones of Chidi were essentially there: This really nice guy who’s trying to get people out of jail because they don’t belong there. It wasn’t until I got the job that [The Good Place creator Mike Schur and executive producer Drew Goddard] brought me into the office. They were like, "Okay, so…those scenes, and that character you were playing? Here’s the real scenario, and here’s his real profession." I had no idea [what the real premise of The Good Place was]. They were keeping it very under wraps.
We all had our freakout moment together, actually—"The Four Babies." D’Arcy [Carden] coined that term. Me, Jameela [Jamil], D’Arcy, and Manny [Jacinto] gathered outside Mike’s office after that first meeting and said, "Okay. This is actually happening, right? We’re actually going to be in a show with Ted Danson and Kristen Bell? On NBC? That’s what’s happening?" We’re all brand-new to this. And we’re all freaking out, right? So we all exchanged numbers to send each other texts whenever that mood struck us. When we went onto the set for the first time, it was like… This is where they shot Frankenstein! All these iconic movies. And I was there working. Not just on a tour. But you just breathe and say, "Okay. This is my office now. Don’t fuck it up." [laughs]
He’s the sweetest man in America. He’s the best, dude. He’s just the best.
I’ll tell you what: [After shooting those episodes] I was worried. With every new script, it was like, "Okay. What’s going to happen to me now? What fresh hell will they put me through?" But it’s fun to see things like that happen to the straight man. I feel like that’s my role in this. That guy who’s watching all the ridiculousness happen around him—and when it happens to him, it’s a lot of fun to watch. All these tucked-in shirts and khakis and loafers…you just want to mess him up.
I would pull the lever and kill one person to spare five. But there are so many different versions, right? There are versions where there’s a train speeding towards five people and the only way to stop it is to push one person off a bridge into the oncoming train. Could you push that person into the train, instead of just switching a lever? It’s amazing how differently the human psyche works when you have to make the choice to kill someone. Physical contact changes the whole equation.
Oh, man. Nothing but runny eggs and quinoa. Just things that would get into my stomach and destroy me.
I was looking for one! But it’s a different scenario now. In the first season, it was so integral to the story that so many of us didn’t know what was going on. This time, it’s more like we can be trusted to keep things under our hats. Season two is wrapped, so we already know everything that happens. And we just can’t wait for everyone else to see it.
I think, given where the country is and how everyone’s feeling—how apprehensive everyone is—it’s sort of nice to have something that’s optimistic out there in the zeitgeist. I think it’s really important, because everyone’s a little bit freaked out with everything that’s going on right now. It’s a nice thought to have. If even a demon can change… [laughs] maybe people can get their acts together.
