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This story is part of I'm So Obsessed (subscribe here), our podcast featuring interviews with actors, artists, celebrities and creative types about their work, career and current obsessions.
William Jackson Harper is perhaps best known for playing the character of Chidi on The Good Place. His performance garnered him an Emmy Award nomination in 2020. He's also appeared in series like Love Life and The Underground Railroad and in films like Midsommar and Dark Waters. His latest role is as Noah in the new Peacock series The Resort. Noah and his wife, played by Cristin Milioti, take a vacation together to a resort to celebrate their 10th anniversary and are drawn into a mystery that took place 15 years before.
The show strikes a compelling balance between telling the story of two people drifting apart framed against the backdrop of an unsolved mystery involving two missing persons.
"It's about nostalgia, regret and being an adult and not having the tools to deal with things that are wrong in your life that you need to fix," Harper said in an interview on CNET's I'm So Obsessed podcast. "It deals with a lot of stuff that is highly relatable to me as a man who's no longer young, but I'm not old yet. I'm definitely just a regular adult."
Prior to The Resort, Harper and Milioti had actually played a distressed married couple in a play. Their familiarity with each other definitely shows through in The Resort. Harper described Milioti as "an interesting, locked-in, smart, talented, funny, like viciously funny, actor."
Listen to my entire conversation with Harper in the podcast player above. During the interview, Harper discussed the perils of filming in paradise for The Resort and being a playwright. He shared how it took until the last season of The Good Place to realize how big the show was and what it meant to people. He also told a story about his first time working with a green screen. It was for the kids show The Electric Company. Harper played an apple and had a rap battle with Lin-Manuel Miranda who played a hot dog.
"I was playing an apple in a refrigerator. And the refrigerator was this mock up of a western town. And I had a rap battle with Lin Manuel Miranda, who was playing a hot dog," Harper said. "And we're dressed in green spandex with a green background."
You can watch the first seven episodes of the The Resort on Peacock with the eighth and final one dropping on Thursday Sept. 1. Subscribe to I'm So Obsessed on your favorite podcast app. In each episode, Connie Guglielmo and I catch up with an artist, actor or creator to learn about their work, career and current obsessions.
