‘The Good Place’ Star William Jackson Harper Talks Similarities To Chidi, Teases Season 2

William Jackson Harper said that his “The Good Place” character, Chidi Anagonye, is very much like him.

“A lot of that dude is me: being wildly indecisive, and trying to be a nice guy, and sometimes just messing that up,” said Harper in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.

When asked when was the last time he unnecessarily agonized over a decision, Harper shared: “Where and at what time to go to lunch two days ago. We spent a good hour and a half deciding whether we should go and eat food, or if we should stay and not. To talk about whether to eat food, which is just a human thing, is ridiculous. After an hour and a half of deliberation, we were like ‘Oh, well I guess now it’s time to eat, so maybe we should just do that.’”

On “The Good Place,” indecisiveness ultimately cost Chidi everything, including his life, and that actually pushed Harper to try to be more decisive at all times. “Working on this character has actually made me a bit more decisive,” Harper said. “Having conversation after conversation, it’s awful to subject people to that. So now I’m trying to go to the other extreme of ‘I don’t care, just do this, it’s fine.’ Make quick decisions so I’m distancing myself from that old habit as far as I can.”

READ: Ted Danson talks playing evil Michael in “The Good Place” Season 2

Although Harper told Eurweb.com last year that he doesn’t have to go that far to play Chidi’s nerdy persona because he’s a “huge nerd” himself, the actor recently admitted to Entertainment Weekly that it had been a challenge for him to embody Chidi’s candid personality.

“Probably the most challenging [Season 1 scene for me] was the introduction, in the pilot, when [Chidi] and Eleanor (Kristen Bell) are getting to know each other,” Harper revealed. “I don’t do a lot of volunteering of information about myself; I tend to kind of stay quiet and let other people talk most of the time except for right now. So it took a second for me to actually get into that mode of just open and smiley and that’s not where I live most of the time. That was a good jumping off point for the whole character — to be this guy who’s not necessarily shy and quiet, which is where I am most of the time.”

At the end of the Season 1 finale, it was revealed that Chidi, Eleanor, Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason/Jianyu (Manny Jacinto) are actually in the Bad Place. Although Chidi’s indecisiveness harmed people, a lot of fans think that Chidi doesn’t deserve to be in the Bad Place. Harper was actually surprised when he found out that Chidi is actually in the Bad Place, but the actor said that Season 2 will explain why Chidi really belongs there.

“A lot of those questions in this next season will [be] explore[d] … a lot more — why those things were so damning for Chidi and why things are so harsh,” Harper said. “A lot of those questions will be answered, to some degree.”

While Michael (Ted Danson) will basically continue torturing Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason in Season 2 of the afterlife comedy, series creator Michael Schur assured fans that the next season is going to be different from the show’s freshman run. “[Michael is] going for a different thing now,” Schur told Entertainment Weekly last month. “He says … that the problem was that they all spent too much time together too quickly, so he’s going to spread them out, give them each a different soulmate, torture them individually for a while, and then slowly bring them together.”

“The Good Place” Season 2 will premiere on Thursday, Sept. 28 at 8:30 p.m. EST on NBC.