Malcolm-Jamal Warner is excellent as Dr. Austin on Fox’s The Resident

This story is part of I’m So Obsessed (subscribe here), our podcast featuring interviews with actors, artists, celebrities and creative types about their work, career and current obsessions.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner is best known for playing Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show. His performance led to an Emmy Award nomination when he was just 16 years old. Warner is also an accomplished poet and musician and a Grammy Award winner. Recently he acquired the film and television rights to the novel Freedom’s Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen by Russell Duncan. He will produce and star in the project about Campbell, an abolitionist who became a Georgia state senator during Reconstruction after the Civil War.

Warner is also one of the stars of the Fox show The Resident, which just concluded its fourth season. He plays Dr. A.J. “The Raptor” Austin, a brash and arrogant doctor. The role is quite the contrast to Warner’s chill, thoughtful and passionate personality.

On CNET’s I’m So Obsessed podcast, Warner explains the joy of playing a cocky doctor who has the knowledge and skill to back up his arrogance. But it’s also a bit of a challenge.

“He’s one of the top cardiothoracic surgeons in the country,” said Warner. “And he doesn’t care what people think of him. He is very much the person I don’t allow myself to be in real life. And it’s tricky, because as an artist we want to be at the place where we don’t care what people think about us. But the success of our craft greatly depends upon what people think about us. There’s a fine line. There’s a tricky dance.”

You can listen to my entire conversation with Warner in the podcast player above or on Apple Podcasts. He discusses being a father, hosting Saturday Night Live, recording a song that won a Grammy and playing Theo.

You can watch The Resident on Fox. You can subscribe to I’m So Obsessed on your favorite podcast app. In each episode, Connie Guglielmo or I catch up with an artist, actor or creator to learn about their work, career and current obsessions.