Welcome to My Favorite Moment! In a new week-long series IndieWire spoke to the actors behind just a few of our favorite television performances of the year about how the onscreen moment they are most proud of came together.
The gift (and some would argue curse) of a romantic comedy is that it tends to follow familiar beats like the meet-cute, the break-up, the reconciliation, and even a quick look at the couple’s happily ever after, that just need to be executed well for the project to work.
The HBO Max anthology series “Love Life,” which centers on a protagonist from their first love to their lasting love, impressively delivers on the genre’s tropes, but with its narrative taking place over 10 episodes, also answers the question of what happens in those in between moments that go overlooked in the movie version of a relationship.
Season 2 star William Jackson Harper, who plays Marcus, a book editor in New York City whose life turns upside down after finding an instant connection with auction house employee Mia (Jessica Williams) on one fateful night, tells IndieWire over Zoom that it is one of these moments, from the “Becca Evans Part II” episode, that’s become his favorite part of the season.
Once Marcus finds out he accidentally got Becca (Leslie Bibb), a work peer that he’d been casually dating, pregnant, he finds that he can’t help but rip off the band-aid and break the news to his longtime crush Mia, who both comforts him and opens up about the similar issues she’s faced in her love life.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity, and rearranged to enhance the flow of conversation.
IndieWire: Do you have a moment from “Love Life” Season 2 that you’re really proud of?
William Jackson Harper: Honestly my favorite moment, and it’s, it’s several moments, is when Marcus and Mia reconnect over Becca [being pregnant], and they just take that long walk through Central Park and hang out for that day. That’s a pretty special episode in general, but it was great to just exist with Jess, you know? I’m such a fan. I think she’s fantastic and interesting. But it’s also one of those things that is so rare, to see something on TV where we’re not trying to get somewhere. It’s not like we’re walking and we’re going to get interrupted by the next plot point. It’s just two people existing. This is a big moment in Marcus’s life, and I think that just living with it and trusting that things are gonna happen, is really significant to me, especially for TV.
William Jackson Harper and Leslie Bibb in “Love Life”
Sarah Shatz/HBO Max
What were the discussions going into that scene? What sticks out to me is how Mia reacts to the news in a more empathetic way than anticipated. I was expecting her to roast Marcus.
Well, it’s a moment where they really drop in and meet where they’re both [at]. She just shows so much compassion to him at that moment. And there’s something about, I’ve had these long conversations, not about that particular thing, but I’ve had long conversations with people that are just where we’re walking and talking for hours. And those moments always stick out to me as very significant moments where you discover something about yourself or this person. And they’re always really special. It’’s nice to actually just have that be what the episode is, just two people learning about each other, learning new things about each other, and finally, after all this time, being able to just be raw and vulnerable, while being lost. I think that she’s lost in her own way, but takes the time to be there for him at this moment. And when she tells him that she’s had an abortion, and what that did to her, and the fact that they can both be there for each other in that moment, it’s the reason that that moment works so well.
It has such a big impact on me because they’ve been going through this whole messy thing for a while, but they’ve landed in a place where they can be friends. There’s a connection there that they both don’t want to relinquish, so rather than meeting up at a restaurant and having a sort of finite amount of time, it’s like, “We’re going to talk more. We’re going to talk until we’re done talking.” And it’s not taking place in the house. It’s not put in like a sort of pressure cooker at all. It’s a “What do you do when the world has tilted on its axis and the only person that you have is the person that’s right there with you?” And so I think that that just feels wonderful to me—especially for television. No one’s going to come and interrupt. There’s no, “We have to get somewhere. I’m on my way to do something else. Why don’t you walk with me? I’m going to drop this off, and then we’ll move on with the story.” It’s just, “We’re going to sit in this moment and just be lost.” That feels really human.
Is that the nice part of this being a TV show as well? More time for a more nuanced story beat like this?
Yeah, I feel like the whole series departs from a lot of romantic comedy tropes. Marcus isn’t a guy that has his heart broken because of something beyond his control. He’s a very active participant in how his whole life blew up—it’s his fault. A lot of the things that befall him are on him, and often, in order to build sympathy for your central character in these sorts of stories, things need to happen to them that are unfair, that they didn’t deserve that, and there’s a lot of bad things that happened to Marcus that he fucking deserved that shit, and he has to grow up. And so I think that that’s one thing that the show already does. The show already breaks away from having everything be someone else’s fault and he’s just getting piled on, the show already breaks that, but then I think that letting them not be bumbling and cute around each other, but just grownups who are dealing with something that I don’t think anyone is ever really prepared for is another departure. We take a “Before Sunrise” moment, a breath for us to get to know them a little bit more, and for Marcus and Mia to really get to understand each other. And, without saying it exactly, you get a deeper understanding of what makes the other tick, and where they’re actually coming from, and what their fears actually are. It’s really vulnerable. They’re just very vulnerable with each other in a way that. And for a very long time, in a way that I feel departs from our idea of romantic comedies.
The scene seems to establish that, regardless of what their romantic relationship is, Mia is this person that Marcus can go to and be his most vulnerable self with.
I think it foreshadows certain things. They are very much themselves in that moment, and they are themselves around each other, and they instantly do that. From the get, when we first meet them, they are just comfortable with each other. I’ve definitely had those moments in my life where there’s people that I instantly feel comfortable with, and I’m just saying all the things and they get it, and they say all the things and I get it. And then even if we don’t agree, or we misunderstand certain things, we still are on the same wavelength, and it’s OK. It’s okay to misstep, to misspeak, to maybe reveal something that you didn’t really intend to. It’s a rare thing to have that person that you’re not kind of pre-thinking what you’re going to say and how you’re going to behave. You’re just fully yourself. And I feel like with Marcus and Mia, they just instantly feel that way. They come right out and that connection almost feels like flirting, even if it’s not. And I think that this [scene] just further dives into that.
Jessica Williams and William Jackson Harper in “Love Life”
Sarah Shatz / HBO Max
How did you prepare for the scene? Was this during a time in the production where you and Jessica were already a well-oiled machine that could sink right in?
We were, yeah. We’d been working together a lot by the time this came along, and we’d have a natural—I just feel comfortable with Jessica, and I’m also in awe of her and think she’s really cool, so that feeds into the chemistry. There’s certain things that I feel as Will towards Jessica, that Marcus feels towards Mia, where she’s just cool and she’s really good looking and she’s funny, and “I can’t believe I’m getting to hang out with this person, I don’t want to mess this up,” all those things. Letting the energy that I have towards her come through, and sort of getting out of the way of it. And so by this moment, I think we had already done a lot of deep dives on some scenes and done a lot of work together. And this was something that I think I craved, where we just got to be with each other without it being about another thing that’s—I mean, it is about something else that’s happening, but the moment is about us just connecting. And that’s something that, at that point in the season, I was really looking forward to. I was geeked to get to do that, and to have a whole lot of long scenes with Jess, and just riff and go for it. That’s why it’s such a great moment for me, why I enjoyed it so much. But I think it also plays really well just because we both like getting to work together. We like getting to really take our time with some scenes, and just exist and live.
How has it been seeing people’s reaction to this season in general? Because I think a lot of people have said “I haven’t seen something so true to my experience on TV before.”
That feels great. I mean, we’re just trying to be honest. To know that it landed, and to know that it was received, and that it felt unique, that’s really rewarding. While we were doing the show, I was having a great time, but it was also a lot of work, and it was really demanding and challenging in so many ways. To have that work be appreciated, and for it to have spoken to people that I intended to speak to, for them to be like, “Yeah, I get it,” all of that feels amazing. It just feels nice to be heard. And it feels nice to be a part of something that is saying so many things that I’ve felt, and so many things that I’ve wanted to explore, so many things that I’ve wanted to see explored on TV. For it to feel salient, and for it to feel different and honest and unique, just makes me feel less crazy. Sometimes I wonder “Am I just not watching the right things that I just not seeing this sort of stuff? Because it’s got to exist.” This depiction of Black love is not something common or readily available to such a wide audience. For it to feel different and special, really just makes me feel seen, and a part of the community in a way that I’m really appreciative of.
“Love Life” Season 2 is available to stream on HBO Max.
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