‘We had a therapist on set’ – William Jackson Harper on The Underground Railroad

The Good Place star plays a free man helping slaves to escape in Barry Jenkins' epic series. The actor talks about the trauma of re-enacting such violent times - and the need to face up to history

When he was a child growing up in Texas in the 1980s, William Jackson Harper went to a show at the Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas. There was some part of the programme where some guy, somewhere in the stands, screams out, The south will rise again!' Things like that just came up that I didn't clock as major moments. But as I got older I was like, Oh, that was messed up.'"

He continues: There's a point in a lot of black people's lives where, especially if you're around a lot of white people, all of a sudden your race becomes a thing. For me, it was middle school. It makes everything that's happening now seem like, Oh well, nothing ever really changed. It just went underground and now it's back on the surface.'"