Uncle Vanya's William Jackson Harper Turns Ennui Into a Tony Nomination

William Jackson Harper has traded one version of angst for another. Best known for his Emmy-nominated role as the morally anguished Chidi Anagonye in NBC's The Good Place, he now plays Astrov, the nihilistic and usually drunk doctor plagued with a terminal case of lovesickness in Heidi Schreck's new adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, directed by Lila Neugebauer at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater. Among a starry cast featuring Steve Carell, Alison Pill, Alfred Molina, Anika Noni Rose and other stage and screen stalwarts, he was singled out for a Tony nomination—his first in what is becoming a muscular and varied career. 

"It's such an ensemble show," he tells Tamsen Fadal, chatting just outside the Beaumont for The Broadway Show. "I never really clocked that people were sort of keying into anything that I was doing in particular. I was always just so impressed with the work that everybody else was doing."

Though most widely recognized for his lovable TV character, Harper has been a usual suspect on stages across New York City for over 15 years. He kicked off this past theatrical season in Eboni Booth's Primary Trust, a play that recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and earned Harper a Drama Desk Award nomination. It boasted a four-person cast, and for a large portion of the playing time, required Harper to hold the stage alone—a departure from the world of Chekhov where people are constantly (if aimlessly) milling about Vanya's dreary country estate.  

"Since I've done a lot of off-Broadway shows and smaller shows with smaller casts, usually there's not that many people on stage," he tells Fadal. "It's unique for me, but it's also one of those things where everyone was just trying all these granular little things and these tiny changes here and there. I'm like, 'I wonder how much the audience is gonna key in on this stuff.'" 

It turns out Harper can command a stage even among a horde of stars with their own bright lights, turning a collection of small choices into a performance that's greater than the sum of its parts. While not the litmus test for success, a Tony nomination does suggest you earned an audience's rapt attention. "Your younger self says, 'Maybe one day,'" Harper concedes about this surreal milestone. "Then your 10-years-in self says, 'Definitely not happening. If I can just pay the rent, that'll be great.'"

And yet, here he is—and with the most Chekhovian explanation for this unexpected turn of events: "Life is long."