William Jackson Harper Had No Problem Gazing Longingly at Aya Cash in ‘We Broke Up’

William Jackson Harper had no problem acting deeply in love with Aya Cash in their new film, We Broke Up, which released in select theaters and on-demand today.

“It’s just a thing that happens when you work with someone that you would very easily have a crush on,” Harper said with a smile.

Cash had nothing but loving things to say about her co-star, too. “I feel like the people that I’m attracted to, in terms of performance, have really unique rhythms. Will’s comedic rhythms are just like no other. He just tickles me.”

Both actors have spent the last five years or so on critically acclaimed comedies—Harper as the perpetually anxious Chidi Anagonye on NBC’s The Good Place, and Cash as the perpetually self-destructive Gretchen Cutler on FX’s You’re the Worst. The two take on slightly more grounded characters in We Broke Up, and their chemistry was clear when the two leads spoke to Decider over Zoom. But, as you might have guessed from the title, this is not exactly your typical happily-ever-after romantic comedy. Directed by Jeff Rosenberg, who also co-wrote the script with Laura Jacqmin, we meet Harper and Cash’s characters—Doug and Laurie—at the moment they break up. Why? Because Doug proposes, and Laurie doesn’t say yes.

Unfortunately, the two still have to attend the wedding of Laurie’s sister together. Harper and Cash spoke to Decider about finding that intimacy, the importance of communication, and falling in love with each other, just a little bit.

Decider: You both totally sell the familiarity of being in a long-term relationship in this film. How well did you know each other before this movie?

Aya Cash: I can’t remember when we met but we’ve circled each other for many years. I feel like I did a workshop with Will at Women’s Theater Project like, 10 years ago, at least.

William Jackson Harper: Yeah, we also both did this thing—I don’t know if you remember—at the 52nd Street project, with the kids writing plays for us. We definitely chopped it up then. We’ve also been just on separate projects, pretty much, for years and years and years. For me, it was like, ‘She’s really dope. I really like her. I think she’s really good.’ And this is the first time we actually got to really work together and spend some time.

Cash: Yeah, I was really excited. I remember, I saw Will in a play a couple years ago, Zoe Kazan’s play [After the Blast]. I had seen him for years around and had been a fan, but I saw that and that’s when I was like, “I really want to work with this person. I want to find something that we get to do together.” And I had no say in [We Broke Up], this just happened. But I remember being like, “God, I need to work with Will!”

What was it that you saw in his performance that kind of brought that thought to your mind?

Cash: I mean, Will is just one of the funniest people I’ve ever seen. I’m interested in people’s rhythms. I feel like the people that I’m attracted to, in terms of performance, have really unique rhythms. Will’s comedic rhythms are just like no other. He just tickles me. But he also has a great ability for pathos, and that combination is just incredibly rare. I feel like you get a lot of really funny people, or interesting people, but Will can really pull your heartstrings too.

Harper: For me, I think Aya is really good at portraying really complicated things very, very subtly. I think the thing that I am drawn to in performers is people that I can really learn from, and steal from. That’s one of the things that, as I’ve watched Aya over the years, I’m like, “I want to learn to do some of that!” That was a huge bonus to getting to work together on this.

How did you kind of create that kind of long-term relationship intimacy that we see on screen? What conversations were you guys having about your characters?

Cash: Not much, honestly. I mean, Will and I have both been in very long-term relationships. So I think we’re familiar with that dynamic, and we both bring that to the table. Our sort of semi-familiarity with each other was really helpful in terms of building that intimacy. But, we didn’t have a lot of time.

Harper: I think the script just made sense. You know, it made a lot of sense in a way that it was like, “I know exactly what this is. I know exactly what this feeling is.” So it wasn’t like a thing where we had to really ask a bunch of questions because we didn’t understand or didn’t get these characters. I think that we really got them and then it was like, “Let’s see what happens when we play the scene like this.”  The script was doing a lot of work for us too.

How closely did you guys stick to the script—was there room for improv, given your comedy backgrounds?

Harper: There was a fair amount of improv with certain things. The script was pretty much the script, but we definitely played around with stuff here and there. I feel like these moments usually happen in very unexpected ways. When something breaks, it’s usually not in the middle of something very heated. Sometimes it’s like, you have any conversation, someone says something very casually, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, “Wait a minute, we should unpack that!”

Any specific examples when that happened that you can recall?

Cash: I have pandemic brain. I can’t remember anything that happened before or during 2020. I can’t remember any specifics, except for on Paul Bunyan day, Kobi Libii just going buck wild on a speech that we could not stop laughing over. That’s about the only thing I can remember improv-wise. I think it’s more like, sort of subtle jokes and tweaks and moments that happened on the day.

I love that opening scene, right before you propose, William, and you’re just gazing lovingly at Aya. It’s a talent we saw on The Good Place too, in the way you looked at Kristen Bell. I have a friend who calls this talent The Look. Is that something you’re aware of and work on—just gazing lovingly at your co-stars?

Harper: It’s certainly not conscious. It’s just a thing that happens when you work with someone that you would very easily have a crush on. So I think that’s all the scene partner that I’m working with.

Cash: That’s BS. I see him in the chair all the time, perfecting the look of love. I love the idea of just a video of all your looks of love. I feel like somebody should make a fan video of William Jackson Harper’s looks of love.

Harper: I’m just trying to cover up my baby tooth and make sure that I don’t look too goofy.

Your characters go through this difficult breakup—do either of you feel like one character is more in the right than the other? I kind of found myself on Lori’s side.

Cash: I don’t think anyone’s right. I think that’s the bigger thing. Society tells you relationships have to look a certain way, be a certain way, hit certain benchmarks. But that’s just not true. You get to decide what your relationship looks like. You can decide if it’s with multiple people, you get to decide if you want to get married, you get to decide if you want to have kids, you get to decide where you want to live. It’s all what’s decided on within the couple. So both of their fatal flaws are not having had this discussion before. Neither of their wants are wrong. But the problem is that they weren’t talking about it.

Harper: I just think it’s great that you find yourself on one side or the other. I think that that’s one of the things that is great about the movie is that no matter whose side you land on, or if you don’t land on the side, all of those feelings and reactions are totally valid.

You both have exciting upcoming projects—William, you’re starring in Season 2 of Love Life on HBO, and Aya, you’ll be starring in the Fox adaption of the sitcom This Country. What can you say about those?

Harper: We’re in the pre-production stages on Love Life right now, so it’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be thorny. It’s going to be uncomfortable because love is uncomfortable. Yeah, I’m really excited to get in there and chop it up. But we’re still like, figuring out a lot of things and I’m curious to see where this all lands, too.

Cash: So we’ve finished—we’ve shot 14 episodes of This Country, and it will be on Fox at some point in the future. We’re not sure when, but it’s some of the funniest people that you’ve never seen before. It’s really exciting because I feel like it’s going to expose the world to a whole new group of comedians that were discovered through non-traditional means. You know, someone was making videos on Twitter, somebody has a YouTube channel—it’s not the traditional path. They are all some of the funniest people that I have ever worked with and I’m just really excited for the world to see them.

Where to watch We Broke Up