Before tragically dying from drowning at the age of 54 in July this year, Malcolm Jamal Warner spoke about the tensions behind the scenes of “The Cosby Show”.
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The actor, who played Theo Huxtable for 8 years in NBC’s hit series, was interviewed for the documentary “Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television” by HBO, which analyzes the past, present, and future of Black talent and Black programming on American television.
“When I auditioned for Cosby, I was 13 years old,” recalls Warner, who was the only boy among the Huxtable children. “I used to watch, you know, Diff’rent Strokes and saw those kids on TV being smart-alecky and all that. That’s what influenced my acting.”
In his testimony, Warner recalled Cosby’s constant arguments with the network executives to ensure the series remained true to his vision.
“Mr. Cosby made sure everyone was aware that The Cosby Show was his creation,” he says in the documentary. “But then you have these other creatives, you know, there’s a producer, writers, you know, the studio coming in, trying to tell him how to make his show, and at every step of the way, Mr. Cosby had to stop them and remind them of the program we were making.”
“I saw him do that from the first through the eighth year,” Warner declared. “That battle never, ever stopped, until the show stopped,” he concluded.
Images: Fox, NBC reproduction. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
