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3 months ago
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William Jackson Harper has had plenty of good years in his acting career. He was Emmy-nominated in 2020 for his acclaimed performance as Chidi Anagonye in NBC’s comedy series The Good Place. In 2009 he became a main cast member on The Electric Company, and that same year was cast in an Off Broadway production of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, a play that would soon win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In 2013 he made his Broadway acting debut in a scene-stealing performance as Stokely Carmichael in the play All the Way. Ten years later he broke into the Marvel Universe with his role of Quaz in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
But the 2023-24 theater season has been one of those years that actors, particularly stage actors, dream of. For starters, he got raves for his leading role as Kenneth in Eboni Booth’s Off Broadway play Primary Trust. Like Ruined, the play would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Then came Uncle Vanya, a star-packed Lincoln Center Theater revival featuring, among others, Steve Carrel, Alfred Molina, Alison Pill, Jayne Houdyshell and, of course, Harper, who plays Astrov, the cynical village doctor who falls hopelessly in love with Elena (Anika Noni Rose), a married visitor to Vanya’s country estate.
Though Uncle Vanya, directed by Lila Neugebauer with a new adaptation by Heidi Schreck, opened to mixed reviews, critics took note of Harper’s outstanding performance, as did Tony Award nominators: Harper is in the running for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, Vanya‘s sole nomination.
In this interview, Harper reflects on his lauded and laudable season, the age-old question of Hollywood versus Broadway, and what it would take to get him back on stage – or back in the Marvel Universe.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Uncle Vanya is playing on Broadway at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater through June 16.
DEADLINE: What a year this has been for you. You starred in one play, Primary Trust Off Broadway, that just won a Pulitzer Prize and you are Tony nominated for another production, Uncle Vanya. What does that feel like?
WILLIAM JACKSON HARPER: I guess I’ve kind of wrapped my mind around it and now I’m just sort of invested in trying to do this play every night, which is kind of a beast. I understand why people rehearse Chekhov for a year before they do it. I’m very grateful and appreciative and feel really honored, but it’s like while I’m in production that’s kind of where my head goes.
DEADLINE: Had you auditioned for Vanya before or after Primary Trust?
HARPER: Primary Trust closed in early-July last year, then shortly after that, I was thinking I’ve scratched my theater itch for another several years maybe and I’m going to see what’s going on otherwise. Then Lila [Neugebauer], the director of Uncle Vanya, who I’ve known for a while, we were working on another project and she, shortly after that, emailed me about playing Astrov in Uncle Vanya. I have always had a hard time wrapping my mind around Chekhov. I think that sometimes it’s been a little impenetrable for me. So, I was a little hesitant but I liked working with Lila and the fact that she was going to be directing and Heidi Schreck was going to be doing the translation, I was really intrigued by the potential for irreverence.
So we did a reading and a lot of things resonated with me, and by maybe September or sometime in the fall it was set that I was going to go ahead and do this production.
DEADLINE: You said that you’ve sensed the possibility for irreverence. Did Steve Carell have anything to do with that notion?
HARPER: At the time actually I didn’t know that Steve was doing it. It was really just honestly about getting to work with Lila again. I think she’s really smart. I think her taste is really good. And I wanted to work with Heidi, who I had done some workshops with early on in my career but never been in a full production with. Then as the added bonus they told me, oh, Steve Carell is probably going to be playing Vanya. Just good thing after good thing kept becoming associated with this project.
DEADLINE: You were the only one in Vanya to be nominated for a Tony this year. How does that feel the day after nominations? Any awkwardness?
HARPER: There’s no awkwardness really. I mean honestly, most if not all of this cast have been nominated or won a Tony before. Everyone’s been really chill about it. Also, we’re honestly just wrestling with this play, so the day after we went in it was like, hey, congrats, and then we did our vocal warmup. This play is like having a tiger by the tail every night, and it really takes all of our effort and concentration to do that.
DEADLINE: A question about Primary Trust. I’m curious, when a play wins the Pulitzer, the award obviously is for the playwright but does an honor like that have any sort of reverberation or spinoff effect on the actors? Did you feel any sense of participation in that award? Does it help your career at all?
HARPER: Oh, I mean I feel a sense of…I don’t know if vindication is the word. I thought the script was really special when I read it for the first time. We did the first read through and we were all a mess. I don’t think we could quite put our finger on why. It’s like a very simple, very subtle sort of story, so why is this play wrecking us the way it is? Eboni has done something very special here. I feel like seeing the recognition that she’s getting for this play and winning the Pulitzer it’s like, okay, so it wasn’t just me and I wasn’t the only person affected by this play.
But I guess I don’t feel any sort of ownership or participation in it so much as I feel gratitude that I got to be a part of something that I felt on the page was so special. As far as the career, I don’t really know if being in the production of something that wins the Pulitzer actually does anything for an actor’s career. It’s a cool thing to have been a part of it but that moment’s really for the writer. It’s just back to business for us.
DEADLINE: Well, every article about the Pulitzer for Drama this year was accompanied by your picture in the production, so at the very least I would imagine if there were any talk of it going to Broadway, you would know about that?
HARPER: I would. I have not heard anything about it. Look, I love that play. I would love to go back and do it again just because it felt very special. It felt very personal. Working with Knud and Eboni and with April and Eric and Jay and Luke, it was just such a great room to be in. So, I’m just like I’m excited to…I mean I would love to go back and revisit it and see if there’s anything we missed and see if we can sort of catch the energy that we had when we were going after it the first time and now being familiar with it already, see what else we can mine out of it and what other nuances we can find that will serve the story.
DEADLINE: You said earlier that after Primary Trust you felt you’d done your theater for a couple years and now on to something else and then Vanya sort of pulled you back in. Is that how you approach the type of career decisions? Do you plan your career is it more chaotic than that?
HARPER: Oh, it’s all chaos all the time. The only thing that I can really do is say no to things. I mean I guess there’s a way in which you can produce something and get something off the ground, but I also feel a little bit self-conscious about that because me attaching myself to a project and then producing it, I would feel…for me, it would be more about showing off what I can do with this thing rather than just wanting it to be an honest exploration. So I don’t really plan out or try to generate so much. I might try to do more of that later. There’s certain things I want to do because I just want to do them, but I want to make sure that it’s always coming from a place that’s honest artistic exploration rather than a chance to really show something to people.
DEADLINE: So if you were offered a new stage show immediately after Vanya and it was something you wanted to do, would you do it?
HARPER: If it was sort of undeniable, maybe. I might. But it all really depends. It’s really about the part more than anything else. I do try to not stay in one place for too long though because it’s easy to just kind of stay in that place. Once you start doing a bunch of plays then that becomes the thing you do. Once you do a bunch of TV and film, people in theater probably stop calling as much. So, I like to mix it up as much as I can. Also, I mean the financial realities of doing plays versus doing stuff on camera sort of necessitates that you do a play and then you need to go actually make your money for the year, pay all your bills, and then you can go back and do a play once you’ve got a little bit of a nest egg underneath you.
DEADLINE: What’s your next money maker?
HARPER: I actually don’t have one lined up. I feel like when I’m doing theater the variety of roles that come my way is really varied. I’m looking to sort of foster that in the TV and film world as well. So whenever something comes that sort of is in line with something I’ve done before I’m less likely to say yes at this point because right now I’m just trying to do as many different things as I can and try to take on as many challenges as I can. Otherwise it does become a job. The fun part of all this is growing as an artist and trying new things and getting out over your skis and failing and then trying something different.
So, I want to make sure that I’m doing that as much as possible and I want to do that in TV and film as well, which is a little bit trickier just because the commerce is much more front and center than it is in theater. People want you to do the thing that they know that you can do, like, We know he can do this so let’s hire them to do it. I don’t want to get into the rut where I’m constantly doing the same thing over and over and over again.
DEADLINE: But if Marvel comes knocking, what would you do?
HARPER: I don’t know. I’ve already done it once.
DEADLINE: Lots of actors do those parts over and over. Once they get sucked into that world it seems like they never come out.
HARPER: Look, if Marvel wants Quaz back for any reason I’m down. If it’s doing the same role in another movie, sure. Why not? But I think if it’s a different project altogether in a role that’s just very similar to other things I’ve done, then I’m a bit more cautious with that. I really want to be able to do as much as I can in the time that I have.
DEADLINE: Do you see any similarities between Kenneth in Primary Trust and Astrov in Vanya? They’re both outsiders in worlds not entirely of their making.
HARPER: I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I think that’s probably the lone similarity that I see between these two characters. I mean there is a kind of weariness with the world that I think they both share. I think that Astrov is a little bit crankier about it, and he’s a little bit more vocal and outwardly vocal to other people about his disenchantment with things and his cynicism. Kenneth, while feeling the sort of weariness with the world, it’s coming more from a place of fear and trying to protect himself and keep himself from getting hurt. I think Astrov is sort of in a place where he’s feeling nothing and it leads him to make some really questionable choices over the course of this play.
So there’s a way in which I think they’re both sort of thrust into the world, outsiders in the world as you see them in, but I think that Kenneth is kind of unwillingly stepping into it, whereas the doctor is feeling stuck and wanting to break it.
DEADLINE: There came a point in your career when you thought maybe you were finished with acting. Does recognition like you’ve received this year help draw you back in? I’m imagining it must, no?
HARPER: I think honestly if we were having this conversation 10 years ago I would say that you were exactly right. I think in retrospect the reason that I wanted the kind of recognition then that I’m receiving right now – which I’m super, super grateful for – was that it would allow me the opportunity to play more interesting parts and to get involved in more interesting projects. But at this point in my career, I’ve been really, really fortunate in that I’ve been involved in some really cool projects that I’m really excited about and happy about and feel really proud of. So this recognition doesn’t necessarily pull me back in. I’m in regardless. But it is really nice.
