Just before his tragic passing, Malcolm-Jamal Warner shared the tension that went on behind the scenes of The Cosby Show.
In the two-part HBO documentary Seen & Heard, executive produced by Issa Rae, Warner detailed his audition experience.
“When I auditioned for Cosby, I was 13,” Warner said. “I’d been watching, you know, Diff’rent Strokes and watching these kids on television be smart alecks and what have you. That’s what my acting had been influenced by.”
After thinking that he nailed the auction, he quickly learned that everything is not what it seems.
“I mean, I killed in the room. I was getting the laughs, and I’m 13, I’m killing in the room,” he recalled. “And I finished my audition, and everybody was smiling, except Mr. Cosby, and he looked at me, and he said, ‘Would you really talk to your father like that?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t want to see that on this show.’ “
During the entire run of the iconic sitcom, Warner also shared that Cosby fought with executives to uphold his vision.
“Mr. Cosby made certain that everyone was acutely aware The Cosby Show was his brainchild,” Warner explained “But then you have these other creatives, you know, there’s a network producer, writers, you know, studio coming in, trying to tell him how to do his show, and every step of the way, Mr. Cosby had to stop them and remind them that’s not the show that we’re doing.”
“I watched him do that from year one to year eight,” he added.. “That battle never, never stopped, until the show stopped.”
After the show’s debut, Warner said that the response was overwhelmingly positive.
“I was getting tens of thousands of letters from people who were saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you for the show,” he shared. “We are the Huxtables,’ and you know, and the show obviously got criticized for not being Black enough, not being a real depiction of the Black experience.”
The first episode of Seen & Heard premieres on HBO Sept. 9 at 9 p.m. ET. Part 2 debuts Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET.