- Warning: Spoilers ahead for the series finale of NBC’s “The Good Place.”
- “The Good Place” star William Jackson Harper earned his first-ever Emmy nomination for the role of Chidi in the fourth and final season of NBC’s comedy.
- Insider spoke with Harper about filming his final scene for the series on location in Paris.
- He also talked about his character’s emotional monologue about the end of existence being like a wave returning to the ocean.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
After four seasons starring as the endearingly anxious Chidi Anagonye in NBC’s “The Good Place,” actor William Jackson Harper earned his first-ever Emmy nomination. The news came as a huge surprise for both him and his costar, D’Arcy Carden, who was also nominated for the first time this year.
“Both of us just didn’t see it coming,” Harper told Insider in a recent interview. “We didn’t feel like we were really part of that conversation at all. It really felt out of left field.”
The morning the nominations were announced, Harper was doing his usual morning workout at home ahead of a phone appointment he had scheduled with an “animal communicator, aka dog psychic.” Then Harper got a call from his publicist, who told him the good news.
“He was just like, ‘You got nominated!’ and I was like ‘I got what?!’ and then I told my girlfriend, she was like, ‘What?!’ and then I called my mom and she was like, ‘What?!’ and then D’Arcy called me and she was like, ‘What?!'” Harper said through laughter. “It was just a whole lot of screaming for about a solid half hour, and then we had to calm down and talk to our animal communicator. It was nuts.”
Insider spoke with Harper about filming two pivotal scenes for "The Good Place" series finale, and his upcoming Amazon series "The Underground Railroad."
The final scene William Jackson Harper filmed for 'The Good Place' took place in Paris: 'We were all about to burst into tears any moment'
For the series finale of "The Good Place," a small group of the cast and crew went to Europe to film a few key scenes. Harper's character, Chidi, was gearing up to leave the afterlife, known as the Good Place. This meant he would walk through one final doorway and cease to exist.
But Chidi's girlfriend and soulmate, Eleanor (played by Kristen Bell), was struggling to accept Chidi's readiness to leave. So she whisked him away to Greece and Paris for one last hurrah among all of Chidi's favorite historical monuments.
The final scene Harper and Bell filmed together, along with D'Arcy Carden, took place on a bridge in Paris.
"It was tough," Harper said. "I remember all of us being like, 'Aw, man, I don't like this. I don't like this. This is it!' There was a lot of very loud, comical bemoaning, trying to make light of the fact that we were all about to burst into tears at any moment."
Harper says he filmed the bridge scene several times and remembers being very present with his costar, Kristen Bell.
"I had to check myself for a second," Harper said. "I was like, 'I'm standing on a bridge, in Paris, with Kristen Bell, acting. Who the hell gets to do this?' I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. I thought, 'This is a moment you need to hold onto. This is something that is really important, and you're gonna remember this for the rest of your life.'"
They had already done "a bunch" of takes, but Harper was more engaged than ever with the scene. But, out of the corner of his eye, Harper saw showrunner Mike Schur walking up the bridge.
"I realized that we got the scene," Harper said. "But I didn't want to stop because that would mean that it's real, you know? I knew he was walking to come and say, 'Guys, we finished the show. You got the scene, it's over.' But I just didn't want to stop like that. I didn't want to end."
Harper knew the cameras had stopped rolling, and he and Bell were now continuing the scene despite knowing the footage wouldn't make it into the final episode. But it didn't matter.
"The fact that I would rather do a scene for the sake of doing a scene, even though we know that we're not rolling, that's the vibe that we had on set," Harper said. "That was the bond we forged over the four years of doing this show. We just liked working together."
The most emotional moment in the series finale comes when Chidi has to say goodbye to Eleanor
After Eleanor decided she was ready to let Chidi go, the two shared one final, intimate moment together in the Good Place. Chidi, a professor of moral philosophy, was able to give Eleanor comfort by the way of Eastern philosophy.
"Picture a wave in the ocean," Chidi told Eleanor. "You can see it, measure it - its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. It's there and you can see it and you know what it is. It's a wave. And then it crashes on the shore, and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. That's one conception of death for a Buddhist. The wave returns to the ocean - where it came from, and where it's supposed to be."
"Not bad, Buddhists," Eleanor says.
"Not bad," Chidi replies. "None of this is bad."
That was another tough day of filming for Harper and Bell. But the scene's narrative carried through to the fact that the cast and crew were indeed nearing the end of their time together.
"You let all of that in when you're doing a scene like that - when you're saying goodbye," Harper said. "It was like, 'Yeah, I'm actually legitimately saying goodbye to my friends.' They all live here in LA and I live in New York. I'm probably not going to see them for a while and that's really, really tough."
Chidi's speech about the wave also provided a bit of solace.
"But I'd like to think that it's also comforting, especially in the midst of everything that we're going through right now," Harper said. "For me, there's something helpful about reducing things that feel big and huge and all-consuming to something that's just a moment - a blip. There's something about that which is really helpful for me. It helps me not stay in a depressed place, where I find myself quite often, honestly."
How Harper approached filming the final moment of Chidi's existence
The last time we see Harper in "The Good Place" finale is when he finally walks through the final door - a simple wooden archway in the middle of a redwood forest grove.
On "The Good Place: The Podcast," showrunner Mike Schur said he deliberately didn't give any of the actors instructions about how to walk through the archway. Just before Harper went through, he placed his hands in his pockets. Schur said it was an incredibly perfect moment, but he had no idea why Harper had chosen that small action.
"Honestly it just felt right," Harper said. "Putting his hands in his pockets is a comforting thing for Chidi. When he's very comfortable he's just standing in a neutral [position], with his hands in the pockets. So it wasn't really conscious in any way."
The whole setup for the series finale, and for Chidi's choice, was centered around the idea that he would be at peace when he finally decided to talk through the door.
"We feel like we've lived out as much of our existence as we care to live out," Harper said. "So it felt like the right thing to do, to make it very simple, as opposed to a moment of walking through the door and really loading it up with anything other than just being at peace and being comfortable."
Fans can see Harper next in an Amazon series called "The Underground Railroad," based on the Colson Whitehead novel and created by Oscar-winning "Moonlight" director Barry Jenkins. Though production on the series has been paused due to COVID-19, Harper had already completed his portion of work on the show before shutdowns began.
"I'm excited for people to see it," Harper said. "Hopefully that'll be pretty soon. It's really great to work with Barry Jenkins. I mean, who would've thought that I would have ever been able to do that."
You can stream the final season of "The Good Place" on NBC, and watch the upcoming Emmy Awards on September 20 on ABC.
- Read more:
- 'The Good Place' creator Mike Schur thinks if COVID-19 is a test, Americans are failing on a daily basis
- Mike Schur reveals his best jokes in 'The Good Place' finale fans might have missed
- 'The Good Place' star D'Arcy Carden on the bittersweet finale and the sweet gift costar Manny Jacinto gave her from set
- 'The Good Place' wasn't a perfect show, but it changed my life anyways