Love Life's William Jackson Harper on playing a romantic lead for the first time: "This shouldn’t be such a frightening thing"

The Cut

As the Black male star of a romantic comedy, Harper knows how unusual his Love Life role is. But playing a romantic lead — someone so unlike how he saw himself — was revelatory for Harper. “I learned how vulnerable I feel when it comes to expressing that kind of emotion," he says. "I feel like a little kid, you know? Like it’s mushy, and I have to push past that. I’m a 41-year-old man! This shouldn’t be such a frightening thing.” Casually, he adds, “I should probably talk with a therapist.” Harper says the role definitely brought him emotional clarity. “Marcus was always hiding, and more than anything, he just needed to be able to say, ‘I don’t care how this goes. I just need you to know that I love you. And that’s just what it is,'" he says. "There’s a real value to just saying you don’t have to say anything back to me. There’s something in just saying it and having it be in the air that’s really purifying.”